Mom understood before either of us spoke.
“No.”
She covered her mouth.
“Oh, Daniel.”
She began crying again.
And suddenly I realized something strange.
My mother had lost my father too.
Not as a husband.
Not anymore.
But as the one person who had carried her secret faithfully.
She opened the drawer beside her bed.
Inside was a stack of envelopes tied with string.
“All from him.”
Dad’s letters.
Hundreds.
Mom handed me one.
I opened it.
Michael got promoted today. Pretended he didn’t care. Bought him a pizza anyway. He ate six slices.
Another.
He’s mad at me again. That means I’m probably doing something right or something incredibly stupid. Hard to tell.
Another.
He looks like you when he laughs.
My eyes blurred.
Then Mom reached deeper into the drawer.
“There’s something else.”
She removed a sealed legal envelope.
My name was written across it.
