He said no.
I asked whether he intended to tell him.
He said he had promised Margaret that he would not.
I told him that promises made out of fear can become another kind of prison.
He looked at me for a long time.
Then he said, “If I tell him, I might lose the only son I’ve ever known.”
I closed my eyes.
My father had been afraid, too.
I turned the page.
The final entry had been written only weeks before Eleanor died.
I saw Daniel again today.
He sat beside my bed and read a ridiculous novel in which a woman inherited a castle from a man she had never met.
He complained about the dialogue, then became so involved in the story that he forgot to turn the page.
I watched him laugh.
For a moment, I imagined what it would have been like to raise him.
