She exhaled sharply.
I dropped them.
“She had already left you.”
My stomach turned.
“So you did.”
“She abandoned you and your father. I wasn’t going to let her come drifting back whenever she felt guilty.”
“Did you write them?”
“Yes.”
Grandma looked at me.
“Yes.”
The word landed harder than I expected.
For a second, I couldn’t speak. Grandma continued before I could.
“She kept sending those letters. Year after year. Someone had to make her understand that she wasn’t wanted.”
Grandma continued.
“By me?”
Grandma looked away.
“You didn’t need her confusing you after everything she’d done.”
I stared at the letters spread across the table.
Every cruel sentence. Every rejection.
“She chose money.”
My mother had read them believing they came from me.
“She died thinking I hated her.”
Grandma’s expression hardened.
“She had a choice. She chose money.”
The money. The anonymous offer.
Grandma went still.
I slowly looked up at her.
There was still one question she hadn’t answered.
“How did you know she chose money?”
Grandma went still.
I stepped closer.
I slowly looked up.
“You’ve spent my whole life saying she left Dad and me for money. How did you know about the offer?”
Her silence lasted too long.
“Grandma.”
She looked at me, and something in her face finally gave way.
“Because I made it.”
“I could afford it.”
I stared at her.
