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“Your mother was smart. Richard had connections, money. They knew how to disappear.
She pulled out her phone, showed me a photo. Two kids, both young. “These are my sons. Your… your grandsons. Tyler is six. Brandon is four.”
They looked like me. Both of them had the McAllister chin, the same crooked smile I saw in the mirror every morning.
“They love motorcycles,” she said, laughing through tears.
“Drive my husband crazy. Always asking to see the bikes when we pass riders. I never let them. Said they were dangerous.”
“They’re only as dangerous as the person riding them.”
“I became a cop,” she said suddenly. “I became a cop because I wanted to find dangerous bikers.
The ones who abandoned their kids. The ones my parents said… the ones they said you were.”
“Did you find any?”
“Sarah—” I reached across the table, stopped. “Can I… can I touch your hand? Just to know you’re real?”
She reached out slowly. Our hands met—mine weathered and scarred from decades of searching, hers strong and steady. The moment our skin touched, she gasped.
“I remember,” she whispered. “Oh God, I remember. You used to trace letters on my palm before bed. The alphabet. You said it would make me smart.”
“You learned your letters before you could properly walk.”
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