“She refused.”
I laughed bitterly. “How convenient.”
“I kept her letters.”
There was more to it.
He handed me one.
‘If you can’t choose us, I won’t raise my daughter on your guilt.’
My hands started shaking.
“There are more,” Thomas said.
I looked up. “You could have fought.”
I kept her letters.
“I know.”
“You could have shown up.”
“I tried several times.”
“Then tried harder!”’
‘I won’t raise my daughter on your guilt.’
He flinched. “She told me seeing me kept reopening the wound. Eventually I convinced myself that respecting her decision was a decent thing.”
“No. It was the easy thing.”
“Yes.”
“You let a child believe her father didn’t want her.”
“I did.”
Tried harder!
“Do you have any idea what that does to someone?”
“No excuse I give you will return those years.”
“Then why now?”
“Because I’m old enough to understand that silence doesn’t become honorable just because you maintain it for decades.”
As I started to hand the folder back, another document caught my eye.
Her father didn’t want her.
The address was the bakery.
“What is this?”
