he mean?” I asked.
My mother’s face had lost all color.
“Mom?”
She pressed her fingers to her lips.
My father turned to her slowly. “Margaret.”
Diane’s voice was barely audible. “You knew.”
My mother shook her head, but tears spilled over. “I didn’t know he had found anything.”
“Found what?” I demanded.
Paul reached into the wooden box again. “There’s one more envelope.”
He pulled out a smaller one, yellowed at the edges.
It was not addressed to me.
It was addressed to my mother.
Margaret, if Emma ever comes home with the child, tell her the truth before someone else does.
The room seemed to tilt.
Leo looked up at me. “Mom, what truth?”
My mother stared at the envelope as if it had been waiting ten years to accuse her.
And then, in a voice I barely recognized, she whispered, “Noah wasn’t supposed to know.”
PART 3 —
