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That night, I returned to my tent under the bridge with paint under my nails and a strange feeling in my chest. I told myself not to make anything out of it.
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A familiar face meant nothing. People saw faces everywhere. In crowds. In old photographs. In strangers who reminded them of someone they lost.
But I barely slept.
The next morning, I woke up inside my tent under the bridge because of the sound of tires stopping nearby.
Usually, nobody drove down there unless it was the police.
My eyes opened fast.
My body knew that sound before my mind did. Gravel crunching. Brakes sighing. An engine idling too close.
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I sat up, heart thudding against my ribs. Morning light pushed through the thin fabric of my tent, pale and gray. For a moment, I stayed still, listening.
Then I heard a car door open.
I unzipped the tent and looked outside.
A white SUV had pulled up right in front of me.
Before I could even react, two teenage twin girls jumped out of the vehicle and started running straight toward me.
They looked about 16, maybe 17, with the same dark hair whipping around their shoulders and the same wide eyes fixed on me like I was the only thing in the world. One of them had her hand over her mouth. The other was already crying.
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I froze with one hand still gripping the tent flap.
And the second I saw their faces… something inside my head began to break apart.
I could not move.
The girls stopped a few feet from me, both breathless, both staring at my face as if they were afraid I might disappear if they blinked.
One of them whispered, “Dad?”
The word struck me harder than any punch. My knees weakened, and I grabbed the tent pole to keep myself upright.
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The other girl began sobbing. “It’s him. It’s really him.”
A woman climbed out of the white SUV then.
She was older than the girls, maybe in her mid-40s, with trembling hands and a face I did not know. Yet something about her eyes pulled at a place deep inside me.
Behind her stood the café owner, Niles. His face was pale.
“I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “I had to call them.”
The woman took one careful step toward me. “Oh my God,” she said, then shook her head as tears filled her eyes. “It’s really you, Mark.”
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Mark.
The name rang inside my skull like a bell from far away.
I pressed my palm to my forehead. “I don’t understand.”
The girl on the left wiped her cheeks with the sleeve of her hoodie. “I’m Mia.”
The other girl stepped closer. “And I’m Sophie. We’re your daughters.”
My daughters.