Chapter Text
Over the years, it was the smallest things that called to mind his lost child.
Mothers pushing giggling babies on rubber swings at the park.
Colleagues leaving work early to pick up children from football practice.
Jenny’s own tribe of children, as they grew.
She would be about 19 now. Grown. In university, or at work. Older than he had been, when he and Claire had made the most difficult decision of their lives.
Of course it was for the best. To give their daughter the best chance of growing up with two whole parents, with good jobs and perhaps a house with a backyard and a dog. More than he - an eighteen-year-old high school dropout, running with a bad crowd on the rough-and-tumble docks of Glasgow, and she - a twenty-one-year-old American exchange student, raring for adventure - could ever hope to provide.
Claire - his light. How she had cried when they had decided she would return to Boston early, to give birth to the baby in her hometown. Knowing that she would leave Glasgow - and Jamie - behind forever.
It was for the best. He knew as soon as Claire had sent him the wallet-sized photograph of a squinting newborn, Brianna Ellen written in looping letters on the back. Together with a description of the loving, childless couple who had adopted her, agreed to send pictures on her birthday every year.
Something had snapped in him then. He was older now, and recognized it for the blind rage that it was. Rage at Claire, for leaving him. Rage at himself, for letting the both of them leave. Rage at the world, and at God, for being so unfair.
In this rage, he decided to punish Claire by returning her letters unopened. By changing his telephone number. By forcing her to suffer in his silence.
Only his ten-year stint in prison - and the solace he found in his books - saved him. Opened his eyes to what he had lost.
And now - now, as he struggled to maintain the life he had worked so hard to build for himself - Brianna and Claire were dull pains in his heart. Always there - the wound not fatal - yet a heavy burden to never be lifted.
What was Brianna doing now?
What was Claire doing now?
He longed to know - and feared to know.
So on that fateful day in November, he didn’t think twice while ripping open the envelope with an American postmark and no return address.
He read the first paragraph - and gripped the kitchen counter, about to collapse in a dead faint.
My name is Brianna. I’m your daughter. I want to know you, and my mother, and where I came from.