I stopped reading.
My eyes moved to Grandpa.
“What mistakes?”
He swallowed hard.
“Your father and I had a disagreement after your mother died. A terrible one. I believed you deserved the truth about certain things. Your father believed knowing them would destroy your childhood.”
Dad turned sharply.
“You don’t get to make yourself the hero here.”
“I’m not trying to.”
“Then tell her everything!”
The words exploded from my father’s mouth.
For the first time, I saw tears in his eyes.
He sat down opposite me and covered his face with both hands.
“Because I was afraid,” he whispered.
“Afraid of what?”
He looked up.
“Afraid that if you knew what really happened during your mother’s final months, you would never look at me the same way again.”
My heart began pounding.
I looked down at the letter and continued.
There is something about your mother that you were too young to understand. She loved your father, but she also carried a secret that she never found the courage to share with you.
I read the sentence twice.
Then a name appeared in the next paragraph.
Daniel.
I had never heard that name connected to my mother.
“Who is Daniel?” I asked.
Grandpa looked at Dad.
My father stared at the floor.
Finally, he spoke.
“Daniel was your mother’s older brother.”
I frowned.
“My uncle?”
“He died before you were born,” Dad explained. “At least, that’s what I told you.”
I felt the room tilt around me.
“You told me he died?”
Grandpa nodded slowly.
“Your mother had a brother who disappeared when they were young. She spent years trying to find him. Shortly before she became ill, she received a letter from someone claiming to know where he was.”
“Was the letter real?”
“We never found out,” Dad said. “Your mother wanted to investigate. I begged her not to. She was already unwell, and I was terrified of losing her.”
I stared at him.
“And you hid all of this from me?”
“I thought I was protecting you.”
“By lying to me?”
He had no answer.
For the next several minutes, the three of us sat in silence while the truth slowly took shape. Grandpa explained that my grandmother had kept copies of the letters, hoping that one day I would be old enough to understand them.
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