If he knew, if he had been told, then he had a name. He existed somewhere. He was not unknown in the true sense of the word. He was only unknown on paper because her mother had chosen not to write him in.
Rebecca had always understood that choice. Her mother had been protecting something. Protecting her, maybe, from the particular pain of having a father’s name on a document but not in her life. A name without a presence. A box filled in but hollow.
She folded the birth certificate carefully along its crease and put it back in the envelope. She put the envelope in her bag, ready for the morning.
Then she turned off the light and lay in the dark and looked at the ceiling and tried, without much success, to sleep.
Thursday arrived cool and overcast, the sky the color of old cotton, a light wind moving through the palm trees on Mr. Caleb’s street.
As Rebecca walked from the bus stop to the gate, she pressed the bell. The gate opened.
Mr. Caleb was already in his study when she came in. His door was open that morning, which was slightly unusual. She could see him at his desk from the hallway, reading something, glasses on, coffee beside him.