A heavy silence muted the room.
Cole remained quiet, the tension in him unmistakable, like a coiled spring holding itself in check.
My heart sank so hard it almost felt physical. Even though I had spent days telling myself not to expect too much, I realized that some foolish, tender, hopeful part of me still had.
The few hopes I had built so carefully in my heart began to crumble one by one into disappointment and melancholy. A lump formed in my throat, making it hard to swallow.
Still, I asked the next question because I needed something, anything, to hold on to.
“What about my father?” I asked, hoping that maybe, somehow, I could still feel connected to someone.
“I found out a couple of years ago that he died,” Karena said with a sigh. “He was Spanish-Canadian. You look exactly like him. The dusky complexion, dark hair, and dark eyes.”
I did not know whether that was meant to be a compliment, an observation, or something else entirely. I only knew that I heard sadness in her voice when she said the word died, and I found myself wondering if she had loved him once. If he had mattered. If I had come from something real and not just something regretted.
In that moment, I realized the irony of my name—it was half Spanish and half Indian, as if someone had tried to cover alltheir bases. Jiya was Indian. Flores was Spanish. The orphanage that named me, if it still existed, would probably be patting itself on the back for such creative matchmaking.
“So,” I said, forcing the words out through the heaviness in my chest, “do you think we could see each other again? Maybe you could bring your children next time?”
Leaning back, Karena stroked her throat and grimaced.“That won’t happen.”
My heart stopped—as if something inside me had been cut loose and left to fall.
I heard Jack shift in his seat behind me, the scrape of the chair legs against the floor breaking the fragile stillness in the room.
She pressed her knees together and leaned forward. “I don’t want them involved in my past. That’s what I came to tell you.”
“But—” I started, desperate now, my voice breaking under the weight of everything I was trying not to feel.
“No. I didn’t want to come here either,” she confessed. “I’m sorry. The only reason I came was to explain my side of the story to you. I didn’t want you to keep wondering. I am settled in my life, and you seem to be settled in yours.”
I swallowed thickly.
Her side of the story. Her truth. She had given me what she came to give, and now I was supposed to accept it. It did not feel like a choice.
It felt like being handed a wound and being told to call it closure. As painful and difficult as it was, I knew I had no power to change what she was saying.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Cole stand up, and Jack stir in his seat. Neither of them looked happy. Their eyes were wide, and their faces had flushed red.
“I hope you understand what I am telling you,” Karena said.
I nodded silently because I did not trust myself to speak.
Then she took an envelope out of her purse and handed it to me.
I looked down at it, confused, and slowly opened it.
It was a cheque for $50,000.
“I thought this would help you out in some way... for all the years I wasn’t there to look after you,” Karena said as she stood.
Derek stood too.
I stared at the cheque, disbelief washing through me in a slow, nauseating wave. My stomach clenched.
I did not want her money.
I did not want compensation.
