The Doctor at the Door Called the Beggar "Dad"

CHAPTER 4 - WHAT ANNA KEPT

Michael drove to Anna's house before dawn.

Elias sat beside him in silence, twisting his wet cap in his hands. The storm had weakened to a cold drizzle, but the roads still shone black. Every mile felt like another year they had wasted.

Mrs. Calder opened the door in her robe, frightened and relieved. Anna was on the couch, burning with fever, her red hair now threaded with gray.

For one moment, when she saw Michael, she looked exactly as she had at twenty-two.

Then pain crossed her face.

"You shouldn't be here," she whispered.

Michael knelt beside her. "Ruby's in treatment. She's stable for now."

Anna covered her mouth and cried.

At the hospital, tests confirmed she had the same hereditary lung disease Ruby now showed early signs of. Manageable, if caught in time. Dangerous, if ignored.

Michael stood by the bed after the exam. "Why didn't you tell me?"

Anna turned toward the window. "Because I loved you."

He almost laughed at the cruelty of that answer. "That makes no sense."

"It does when your father tells you your mother died drowning in hospital debt," Anna said, not looking at Elias. "He told me if I stayed, you'd throw away your future trying to save me. He begged me to let you go."

Elias shut his eyes.

"I thought I was doing one noble thing in my life," Anna said. "Then I found out I was pregnant. I wrote to you once."

Michael looked at her sharply. "I never got it."

Anna reached into the pocket of her old cardigan. Even now, she had carried it. A folded letter, soft with age.

Elias stared at it as if it were a weapon.

"I gave it to your father," Anna said.

Michael did not open it right away. He looked at Elias instead.

The old man finally spoke in a voice scraped bare.

"I burned it."

No one moved.

Then Michael unfolded the letter with shaking hands.

Inside was a sonogram photo and one line written across the top:

If you come, come because you still love me.

Ruby's monitor began alarming down the hall.

"I burned the only map back to us."