“My uncle once asked me, ‘Are you a virgin?’ when I was already 27 years old. From that moment, I started to be afraid of him. And a few days later, when he took me to a hotel outside the city, he leaned close to my ear by the pool and whispered, ‘After the pool, come up to my room…’”

I just stared at him.

“My father?”

Richard nodded.

“That’s why I brought you here. Starting tomorrow, this hotel is closing for renovations. And this room means a lot to me.”

He turned over the photograph of my mother.

There was a handwritten message on the back.

Room 214. The day everything began.

I still didn’t understand.

Richard sat down in a chair.

“Your parents met in this hotel.”

I said nothing.

“But that’s not the whole story.”

He opened the envelope.

Inside was a letter written in my father’s handwriting.

It turned out that during the final months of his life, my father had been preparing something for me.

He had collected photographs from my childhood, letters from my mother, little notes from my school years, and even old postcards I had given him when I was a child.

He had asked Richard to keep everything safe.