The Photograph That Led Me to My Twins—and the Letters My Mother Hid for Three Years

She answered on the first ring, as she always did when my number appeared.

“Gabriel. Are you still in Saint Paul?”

“Yes. I met Savannah.”

A pause.

“Was that wise?”

“Did you prevent her letters from reaching me?”

She said my name in the warning tone she had used when I was eleven and dared to contradict her at the dinner table.

“Your divorce was a volatile situation.”