I wanted them to have to ask me.
He died inside those two weeks.
That letter said where he was. Ward and everything.
I posted it in the September, three months after, with nothing added, because I could not think what a person adds to that.
My father has never mentioned it and I have never asked whether he opened it.
My mother has. She told me in that kitchen that he reads it about twice a year, in the garage, and that he thinks she does not know.
She said: he keeps it in the toolbox.
And then she said the sentence I have not been able to put down since.
She said: he didn’t know your brother was ill either, love.
She meant it as a comfort. She meant that the two of us are in the same position.
We are not in the same position. But I understood for the first time that in my father’s head there are two people who were not told, and one of them is him.
