“He told me we needed to return. But he never told me about the reminder. He never showed me the letter.”
Michael stood and walked to the window.
I had never seen him look so angry.
“My father would have taken me to the hospital if I had been ill. He would have dragged me there himself.”
“I know.”
“Then why didn’t he do the same for you?”
I looked down at Samuel’s letter.
“Because he was frightened. Because he wanted something he knew I did not want. Because he thought he could solve a problem by waiting until it became easier to discuss.”
Michael turned toward me.
“That isn’t fair to you, Mom.”
“No,” I whispered. “It wasn’t.”
I cried then, not because I suddenly believed Samuel had never loved me, but because I had spent fourteen years remembering him as the man who always knew what to do.
