I hated that too.
I opened the envelope.
The first page contained only four lines.
Linda,
If Susan has finally told you everything, then she has kept the one promise I had no right to ask her to keep.
Do not forgive me because I am dead.
Read the rest because you deserve the version I was too afraid to give you alive.
I stopped.
The room blurred.
Michael knew.
He knew exactly what he had done.
That somehow hurt more than if he had been delusional enough to think it harmless.
I continued.
The letter did not ask for absolution.
It reconstructed the timeline.
The night with Susan before our wedding.
Her pregnancy.
His discovery months later.
Susan’s decision to raise Emily without naming him publicly because her marriage at the time had already begun and because admitting the truth would have detonated multiple lives.
That part made me look up.
