I was perhaps twelve years old. My father had been looking through an old photograph album when he came across a picture of himself as a young man.
I had asked him whether he had ever loved another woman before marrying my mother.
He had smiled sadly.
“Once,” he said. “But sometimes love isn’t enough to build a life.”
I had laughed and told him that sounded like something from a bad film.
He closed the album.
“Maybe,” he replied. “But it’s still true.”
I had forgotten the conversation until that moment.
Now every word returned with painful clarity.
I looked at the final paragraph of Eleanor’s letter.
Your father died believing that he had failed both of us.
He never knew whether you would forgive him for keeping the secret.
I promised him that if fate ever brought you into my life, I would find a way to tell you the truth.
