“I got her help.”
“You gave her an ultimatum.”
“I had a baby to protect.”
“And she was still his mother.”
They stood several feet apart, speaking in controlled voices that carried years of unfinished arguments.
Silas moved closer to me.
I rested a hand lightly on his shoulder.
Evelyn noticed.
The anger left her face.
She sat on the edge of the bed.
“I didn’t mean for you to find out this way,” she told Silas.
“How did you mean for me to find out?”
“I thought your father and I would agree.”
“You didn’t.”
“No.”
“So you hid it.”
Evelyn looked at the letters in her lap.
“Yes.”
Silas considered that.
“Dad hid it too.”
Daniel lowered his eyes.
“Yes,” he said.
There was something remarkable in the way Silas accepted the answers. He did not cry. He did not demand immediate explanations for every lost year.
