Kalan nodded slowly the way he did when he was still thinking then. So don't stop. Malik looked at him. She's been looking a long time. Kalen said simply, "Don't stop. " He handed his father the dry plate and went to his room to finish his homework.
Malik stood at the sink for a moment, dish towel in hand, the water still running. Then he turned it off, dried his hands, and called Saraphina to tell her they were moving forward. The first real lead came through on a Thursday afternoon, a single page faxed from a records office in Georgia, forwarded through two attorneys, and a private investigator, Saraphina, had retained before Malik entered the picture, an adoption file, partially redacted, showing a transfer through three different states over the course of 8 months. The final placement. A family named Ward in a coastal town called Marin's Point, North Carolina.
A girl placed at 2 months old. Current age 16, Saraphina read the page four times. Then she set it down on the table and said, "I want to go tomorrow. " "No," Malik said. She looked up. "You can't walk into that girl's life and hand her a DNA test and 16 years of backstory in one afternoon. " He said, "She doesn't know you exist.
Her parents might not have told her she's adopted. You show up unannounced and you won't get a second chance. I may not have time for a slow approach. Then we use the time you have carefully. He pulled out the chair across from her and sat down.
You told me no rushing her. I'm holding you to that. Saraphina's jaw tightened. You don't understand what it's like to watch every day disappear. No.
He said, "I understand what it's like to be afraid someone's going to take my kid away from me. And I know that fear makes you want to move fast, but fast isn't always the same as right. Don't lecture me about my own daughter. I'm not lecturing you. I'm telling you that if you go in there desperate, she'll feel it.
And a 16-year-old girl who feels cornered will shut every door she has. " The silence between them stretched. Saraphina stood up from the table and walked to the window. Outside the street was gray and quiet. A few dead leaves moving along the sidewalk in the November wind. I've written her letters, she said finally, not turning around.
One for every year. I never sent them because I didn't have an address. I wrote them anyway. A pause. 23 of them.
She was born in the spring, so I always wrote twice that year. Malik didn't say anything. I'm not afraid of dying, she said. I've made my peace with the timeline. What I cannot make peace with is her thinking for the rest of her life that she was unwanted.