it to me now?”
“He made me promise to wait.”
“Wait for what?”
Susan’s voice broke.
“Until I was ready to tell you the truth.”
I stood so quickly that
sand scattered across our towels.
“Forty-two years, Susan. I’ve known you for forty-two years. Whatever this is, you don’t get to decide when I’m ready to hear it.”
She lowered her head.
“You’re right.”
“Then tell me.”
She looked up at me with tears in her eyes.
“Tomorrow, a woman is coming to meet us. Her name is Emily.”
“Who is Emily?”
Susan took a shaking breath.
“My daughter.”
I stared at her.
“You don’t have a daughter.”
“I know that’s what I’ve always told you.”
I felt the ground
shift beneath me.
“And Robert?”
Susan closed her eyes.
“He helped me find her.”
I didn’t open Robert’s letter that evening.
I couldn’t.
Instead, I walked back to our hotel
