“Yeah?”
“Were you scared when you found the money?”
I smiled.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
I looked at him.
“Because sometimes the hardest choices are the ones nobody else knows you made.”
Sophie leaned against my shoulder.
“Did you make the right choice?”
I looked at my children.
And I thought about my father.
“Yes.”
Years later, I visited Walter one last time.
He was older.
Much older.
We sat on his porch.
The same place where I had returned the wallet.
“I never thanked you,” I told him.
He smiled.
“For what?”
“For believing in me.”
Walter looked toward the sunset.
“No.”
He shook his head.
“Your father believed in you.”
I smiled.
“He never got to see who I became.”
Walter was quiet for a moment.
Then he said:
“You’re wrong.”
I looked at him.
“What?”
Walter reached into a drawer beside his chair.
He pulled out a small envelope.
My name was written on it.
My father’s handwriting.
My hands started shaking.
“How?”
Walter smiled sadly.
“He wrote it the week before he died.”
I opened it.
Inside was a letter.
Only a few sentences.
But I will never forget them.
