“Your mother may hold on too tightly to you after I am gone,” Dad warned gently. “Be patient with her, but please do not disappear completely from her life.”
I began crying quietly before he even mentioned Gabriel’s name, as though some younger part of me had already recognized the warning.
“And please do not judge your mother for feeding a boy with nowhere safe to go,” Dad continued through the speaker. “Families survive hard years because people share what little they have, and sometimes the smaller portion is still enough for everyone.”
I bent over the kitchen table, sobbing quietly into my hands. All the bitter resentment I had protected since my childhood suddenly looked painfully young, foolish, and lonely.
“He knew,” I whispered through my tears.
“He knew my mother’s health was getting worse back then,” Gabriel agreed softly. “He worried I would end up entirely alone, and he feared you might misunderstand if your mother kept helping me.”
