Thomas wanted to marry Laura.
His father refused.
When Thomas rebelled, he was cut off.
Then Laura became frightened that the Vale family might try to take custody of me.
So she left.
Thomas searched for us for years.
“He finally found your mother,” Eleanor said. “But by then she had remarried.”
“My stepfather.”
“Yes.”
“He was good to me.”
“I know.”
I frowned.
“How?”
“Thomas knew too.”
She touched the envelope.
“That’s why he didn’t interfere.”
Tears blurred my vision.
“He just disappeared?”
“He decided that loving you meant allowing you to have a stable father.”
I looked away.
All my life I had interpreted absence as rejection.
Now I was being told absence had been sacrifice.
“What’s in the letter?”
“I don’t know.”
“You never opened it?”
“It wasn’t mine.”
“Why didn’t you give it to me?”
“I promised Thomas I would deliver it when you turned eighteen.”
