“Yes.”
Anger surged through me.
“Everyone knew except me.”
“Christopher.”
“Everyone decided what I could handle.”
“I’m sorry.”
I walked toward the windows.
Below us, traffic moved along the streets in orderly lines.
People hurried toward home, offices, appointments, and lives filled with things strangers could never guess.
My mother had died six years earlier.
I couldn’t ask her why she’d kept these secrets.
Perhaps she’d been frightened.
Perhaps she’d thought she was protecting me.
Perhaps she’d done what seemed safest for the family she had built.
I couldn’t know.
After a while, I returned to the desk.
Then I opened the envelope.
Inside was a letter covered in handwriting.
I began reading.
Christopher,
If you are reading this, then you are old enough to understand something I wasn’t brave enough to explain when you were small.
I did not leave because you were unwanted.
