I felt something inside me break.
“Then why?” I asked. “Why did he never contact me?”
Daniel lowered his eyes.
“I don’t know all the details. He says he made a terrible mistake. He’s seriously ill now, and he wants to see you before it’s too late.”
I should have walked away.
I should have told Daniel that his grandfather had no right to reach into my life after half a century and expect me to respond.
Instead, I heard myself ask the question that had haunted me since I was twenty-one.
“Does he still have the ring?”
Daniel looked confused.
“What ring?”
“The engagement ring he promised me before he left.”
Daniel’s expression changed.
“I think you’ll need to ask him that yourself.”
Two days later, I stood outside Thomas’s room in a quiet care facility.
My sister had offered to accompany me, but I asked her to wait outside. Whatever happened, I needed to face it alone.
