would raise my son together — not alone, either of you. Both of you. So he’d have all the family he could, and so neither of you would have to lose everything at once.
Please don’t be angry that I kept it from you. I was eighteen and heartbroken and trying to protect everyone, including you, from a grief I could barely hold myself.
Give my son both his grandmothers. Tell him his father loved his mother for one perfect summer. Tell him he comes from love, not from a mystery.
And tell him I’m sorry I couldn’t stay.
I love you, Mom. I love him already, so much, even now, before I’ve met him.
Take care of each other.
— Emily”
I looked up from the letter, and Margaret was crying, and I was crying, and I understood, finally, everything my daughter had carried alone.
She hadn’t kept a shameful secret.
