He dialed the only number he still remembered from his old life—the landline of his late wife’s sister.
A young woman answered.
“Hello?”
Walter swallowed hard. “Rebecca Miller?”
“Yes… who’s calling?”
“It’s Walter.”
Silence, then a sharp inhale. “Uncle Walter? Oh my God—where are you?”
He couldn’t speak. His throat closed around the years he’d lost.
“Stay there,” she said. “I’m coming.”
When Rebecca entered the courthouse lobby thirty minutes later, Walter barely recognized her—the little girl who once climbed onto his shoulders now a woman in her thirties, her eyes wet and shining.
She crossed the marble floor in three strides and wrapped her arms around him.
“Uncle Walter, we thought you were dead.”
He stood stiff for a moment, then let the walls fall. His arms came up, trembling, and held her.
“I was,” he said quietly. “But not anymore.”
