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.

We sat in the study.

He placed a sealed envelope on the desk.

“Your mother’s letter,” he said.

The envelope was yellowed at the edges. My name was written in a handwriting I recognized from the few birthday cards she had left behind.

Nathaniel.

I touched the ink.

“Why did Dad hide this?”

“I don’t know.”

“Do you think he ever saw it?”

Richard’s hesitation was answer enough.

“How did you get it?”

“Your mother gave it to your grandfather. She asked him to keep it until you were old enough to understand.”

“Why didn’t he send it?”

“Because he believed your father might intercept it.”

I opened the envelope.

The letter was only three pages long.

My dear Nathaniel,

If you are reading this, then you are old enough to know that adults can love each other and still make choices that hurt one another.