I scrolled past them until I found a contact I had saved months ago as “Harry from school.” I had found my biological father’s number in an old phone hidden in a kitchen drawer. My mother had never deleted his messages; she had just buried them under layers of junk.
The messages I had read back then showed a man who was begging to see his son. He had sent child support payments and cards that I had never received. I had saved his number just in case, though I never thought I would actually use it.
I typed a message telling him who I was and that I almost died. I told him I was in the ICU and that I needed help. I hit send and watched the bubble turn blue.
Within seconds, he responded. He asked if I was safe and told me he was leaving his house in North Carolina immediately to come to me. He told me he had been waiting eighteen years for me to ask him for anything.
I put the phone down and cried into the hospital blankets. That afternoon, my mother returned to the room with her “worried mother” mask firmly in place. She saw Paige’s card on the bedside table and her face went cold.