For three days, that plain manila folder sat on my desk like an unexploded device—quiet, thin, and carrying a weight I could feel from across the room. I moved around it, worked beside it, even ate dinner with it sitting inches away. I didn’t avoid it because I feared the truth. I avoided it because I already knew whatever waited inside would change everything.
On the third morning, with cold coffee and silence filling the house, I finally opened it.
The first line hit like a physical blow:
“Subject: James Spencer Sterling, age 28. Current living situation: encampment beneath I-70 overpass, Columbus, Ohio. Accompanied by minor female, approximately 18 months old.”
My great-granddaughter.
My grandson.
The report traced the unraveling of a young man’s life—job loss, an eviction, the death of a wife far too young, and two unanswered pleas to the only parent he had ever known: my son, Gregory. The same son who had stolen from us thirty years ago and disappeared without a word. The man who left my husband’s heart weakened, my home quiet, and our family cracked in ways I never fully admitted.
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