“That isn’t the point.”
“I didn’t mean—”
“My good life doesn’t justify what you did.”
He went silent.
“I had children. I loved people. I became a grandmother. None of that changes the fact that you took something from me.”
“What?”
“The truth.”
I held up David’s letter.
“And the right to decide what it meant.”
I left Charlie’s house with the envelope in my purse and forty-two years of trust broken open.
For weeks, we barely spoke.
Charlie stopped coming to Sunday dinner.
The girls noticed.
So did Ellie.
“Are you mad at Uncle Charlie?” she asked one afternoon.
“Yes.”
“Forever?”
I thought about it.
“I don’t know.”
That answer surprised me.
Because for once, the uncertainty wasn’t about David.
It was about Charlie.
Eventually, my brother called.
“Can I make you something?”
“I don’t want a gift.”
“It isn’t really a gift.”
