That day, the two of them spent hours trying to figure out where George lived.
The next morning, Emily came back because George had somehow ended up in the same park again.
I looked at my daughter.
“Why didn’t you tell me any of this?”
Her answer hurt more than the phone call from the school.
“Because you’re always busy, Dad.”
I said nothing.
Emily continued.
“Whenever I tried to tell you something, you usually said, ‘Later.’ When I had a problem at school, you told me to handle it myself. I thought if I told you about George, you would just say it wasn’t my problem.”
I wanted to argue.
But I couldn’t.
Because she was right.
For years, I had given her a home, clothes, and money.
But very little of my time.
Together, we took George home.
Emily had already managed to find his address from some old documents she discovered in the pocket of his jacket.