She started crying.
I pulled her into my chest.
After a moment, she whispered:
“Mom said to do it there.”
“At graduation?”
“Yes.”
“She wrote that you deserved to be honored when you learned the truth.”
I closed my eyes.
“That you shouldn’t be alone when the secret came out.”
That sounded exactly like her.
Even eighteen years later—
she had still been protecting me.
THAT NIGHT
I placed the old letter beside my wife’s photograph.
Then I stood there for a long time.
“You knew.”
I smiled through tears.
“You knew all along.”
Laughter came from the kitchen.
I followed the sound.
Arthur sat at the table.
Sophie was beside him.
Cake between them.
She was making him laugh about something that had happened at Westbridge High School years earlier.
And strangely—
he looked like he belonged there.
Maybe because he always had.
I sat across from him.
