My father threw me out on my eighteenth birthday, stole the $3,000 I’d saved from working after school, and used it for my stepbrother. Nine days later, while I was digging through a restaurant dumpster for something to eat, a stranger in an expensive suit called my name and told me my supposedly dead grandfather had left me everything. But there was one condition nobody had warned me about.

I saw him today.

He has your eyes.

I pressed the paper flat with trembling fingers.

My grandfather had seen me.

He had been near my life, somewhere outside it, and I had never known.

At the bottom of the box lay a final envelope. Unlike the others, it had my father’s name on it.

Thomas Brooks.

I stared at it for a long time before opening it.

Thomas,

I know you believe I took Claire from you when she was young. That is not what happened.

She left because she discovered the truth about the money you borrowed from the orchard business.

The letter blurred.

I read the sentence again.

My father had worked for my grandfather’s company before I was born. He had always said he built his life without help. He had never mentioned borrowing money.

I continued.

You promised to repay it. When you could not, you asked me to hide the debt from Claire. I refused. She learned the truth and decided to leave.