I looked away.
All my life I had interpreted absence as rejection.
Now I was being told absence had been sacrifice.
“What’s in the letter?”
“I don’t know.”
“You never opened it?”
“It wasn’t mine.”
“Why didn’t you give it to me?”
“I promised Thomas I would deliver it when you turned eighteen.”
My voice hardened.
“I’m thirty-eight.”
“I know.”
“Then you’re twenty years late.”
Eleanor closed her eyes.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because after Thomas d/i/e/d, your mother begged me not to.”
I stood.
“She knew?”
“Yes.”
“She knew you had this?”
“Yes.”
Anger rose.
“Everyone knew except me.”
“Christopher.”
“Everyone decided what I could handle.”
“I’m sorry.”
I walked toward the window.
Below us, the city looked tiny.
Orderly.
Traffic moving in perfect lines.
People heading home.
People living lives filled with secrets nobody else could see.
My mother had d/i/e/d six years earlier.
