“Did he tell you about me?”

“No. He didn’t mention you. He didn’t mention a baby.” Robert’s face tightened with regret. “If he had—”

Joanna waited.

“I told him to stop running. He became angry and said I had never understood anything about blood.” Robert looked again at the birthmark. “Then he left. Three days later, his car was found abandoned near Blackwater Bridge. No crash. No signs of him. Just the car, his phone, and his wallet.”

Joanna’s breath caught.

“No body?”

“No body. The police believed he staged it and ran. I wanted to believe he was alive.”
For seven months, Joanna had imagined Logan somewhere free, careless, laughing too easily, telling someone new that his past was complicated. That image had hurt, but it had kept her standing. Anger was easier than grief. Now there was a bridge, an abandoned car, and a father who had vanished from more than one life.

Robert pulled a chair closer and sat carefully.

“My wife and I had two sons,” he said. “Logan, and another boy. His name was Elias.”

The name meant nothing to her.

“Elias had a birthmark under his left collarbone, exactly like your son’s. When Elias was five, he disappeared.”

The nurse crossed herself without thinking.

Robert kept going, as though stopping would break him.

“It happened at the county fair. One moment he was beside my wife. The next, he was gone. We searched for months. Police, volunteers, dogs in the woods. Nothing. No note. No body. No reliable witness.”

His hands pressed hard against his knees.

“My wife kept his room the same for ten years. His shoes by the bed. His drawings on the wall. She died believing he was still alive.” His voice almost failed. “That birthmark appears in my family sometimes. When it appears, it looks almost identical.”

Joanna looked down at the mark on her son’s skin.

“So this baby is your grandson,” she said.

The word trembled between them.

“What did Logan tell you about his family?” Robert asked.

She gave a humorless laugh.

“Almost nothing. He said his mother died. He said you were strict. He said he hated hospitals.” She paused. “He said there were things nobody in his family talked about. He had nightmares. Once, he said a name in his sleep.”

Robert barely breathed.

“What name?”

“Elias.”

The nurse made a soft sound.

Robert stood so quickly the chair scraped the floor. Joanna flinched.

“I’m sorry,” he said, though his eyes had turned distant and afraid. “Three months before Logan disappeared, he came to my house drunk. He went into Elias’s old room. I had kept it locked after my wife died. I couldn’t clear it out. Logan broke the lock.”

“He said he remembered something. He remembered the fair. He remembered Elias being led away. A woman in a green coat was holding his hand. But Elias wasn’t crying. Logan said Elias looked back and smiled.”

Joanna glanced at the sleeping baby.

“Logan was three years old when Elias vanished. For years, he remembered nothing. Then suddenly, after nearly twenty-five years, the memory returned.”

“Why then?”

“Because someone sent him a photograph.”

Joanna went still.

“He refused to show it to me. He said if I saw it, I would try to stop him. He said he knew where Elias was.”

Alive. The missing boy might have grown into a man.

“We fought,” Robert said. “I thought it was a hoax. Families like ours attract cruel lies. People claimed to be Elias before. They called asking for money. Every time, my wife broke a little more. I couldn’t endure it again. But Logan believed it.” His eyes shifted toward the baby. “Then he met you. Then he disappeared.”

A knock sounded at the door.