It came out broken.

Then I found one final entry about the shoes.

Someday I want him to see these and understand he walked farther than he thought.

That ended me.

I folded over the notebook and cried.

Not politely.

Not quietly.

I cried like the nine-year-old boy at a closed casket.

I cried like the eighteen-year-old who thought his father saw him as income.

I cried like the twenty-three-year-old who suddenly understood he had spent years living beside a man who loved him fiercely and had absolutely no idea how to say it.

Frank stood near the sink until I finally whispered:

“Why didn’t he just tell me?”

Frank looked toward Dad’s empty chair.

“Because your father thought love was something you did.”

He paused.

“Not something you said.”

—

PART 5 — THE WOMAN IN ROOM 214

Three days later, Frank drove me two hours north.

The address came from my mother’s most recent letter.