His name was my maiden name followed by my ex-husband’s last name. I told the photographer that made no sense because nobody in my family had that name, and my daughter had never mentioned him. She said she’d thought the same thing, which was why she’d been trying to figure out how to tell me. Then she sent me the full-resolution photograph again. The young man wasn’t just standing beside my daughter — he was wearing the same watch my ex-husband had worn when we were married. I called my daughter and asked where he’d gotten it.
She said she’d asked him the same question after the reception. He told her his father had given it to him when he was sixteen and told him never to take it off. I asked her what his father was called. She said she’d never met him, because he’d died before she was born, but the young man had shown her an old photograph of him once. I asked her to send it to me. When the picture came through, I recognized the man immediately. It was my ex-husband — but the photograph had been taken years after the divorce. I called my daughter and asked why she’d never told me she’d met anyone connected to him.
She said she hadn’t known until June, when the young man’s mother contacted her and asked whether she knew my name. Then she told my daughter that her son had been looking for me for years because his father had left him one instruction before he died. I asked what the instruction was. My daughter started crying and said she’d been afraid to tell me because she didn’t know what it meant. Then she read me the message he’d kept in his father’s handwriting:
“If you ever meet her, tell her I’m sorry I made her believe she was my only family.”
