I stormed outside in my bathrobe.
“HEY! What do you think you’re doing?!”
He looked up.
And that’s when my breath caught in my throat.
His eyes—dark, tired, familiar—filled with something that looked like shame.
That’s when I recognized him.
I ran back inside, slammed the door, and locked it.
Because the man fixing my fence was the man who abandoned me thirty years ago.
My father.
I hadn’t seen him since I was four.
My mother always said he chose his bike over his family. That he rode off one day and never looked back. No calls. No cards. No birthdays.
I grew up hating him.
And now he was in my yard, fixing my fence like he had any right to be here.
I called the cops again.
That was the second time.
