“Let Nancy die with her secrets.”
After we hung up, I sat in my bedroom staring at the envelope.
For several minutes, I nearly listened to him.
Then I remembered Grandma slapping his wrist when he reached for the handbag all those years earlier.
I broke the seal.
The letter began simply.
“Emily, if you’re reading this, then I owe you an apology.”
Grandma explained that several years earlier, she had decided she could no longer live with what happened to my mother.
She planned to gather the family and finally tell the truth.
Before doing so, she called one of her sons.
He begged her not to say anything.
His children had grown up believing the same story as everyone else.
He argued that exposing the truth after so many years would destroy his family.
Grandma refused.
That was when he threatened her.
“You do that, and you’re out of this house.”
My hands went cold.
Years earlier, Grandma had transferred ownership of her house to him because she believed it would simplify things as she grew older.
He used the deed against her.
Grandma wrote:
“I was seventy-two with almost nothing of my own. I chose the roof over my head. I have hated myself for it every day since.”
Then came the truth.
