I folded the letter in half.
I regretted the sharpness immediately.
“No. If he believed I deserved the truth, he would have told me himself.”
Mallory looked down.
I regretted the sharpness immediately.
Not because it was untrue.
Because none of this was her fault.
“I spent years angry at him too.”
“I’m sorry,” I said.
She shook her head.
“You don’t have to apologize.”
“Yes, I do.”
She wiped her cheek.
“I spent years angry at him too.”
“Why did you wait until now to contact me?”
“For abandoning you?”
She nodded.
“And then for showing up when I was sick, like being sorry could give us back twenty-four years.”
For a while, neither of us spoke.
Then I asked, “Why did you wait until now to contact me?”
“He really left both of us with that job, didn’t he?”
