alone.
Susan followed several minutes later, but I asked her not to come into my room.
For the first time in our lives, I wanted distance from her.
I sat beside the window, watching the darkening ocean.
A daughter.
Susan had a daughter.
Somewhere in the world, there was a woman who had existed for decades without my knowing.
And
somehow, Robert had known.
My husband.
The man who’d told me everything.
Or so I’d believed.
I turned the envelope over in my hands.
Robert had died eleven months earlier.
For thirty-one years, we’d shared a marriage that I considered the happiest part of my life.
We’d argued about ordinary things. Money. Vacation plans. His habit of leaving shoes beside the front door.
But I’d never questioned whether I knew the man I’d married.
Now I was afraid to unfold a single sheet of paper.
At midnight, I finally opened
