I wanted to tell you so many times.
I am sorry that I never did.
If you can forgive me, do so because I loved you, not because I deserve it.
Your father,
Joseph.
I folded the letter carefully.
For years, I had thought I knew my father.
Now I understood that he had been carrying a grief I had never seen.
But one question remained.
Why had Eleanor insisted on marrying me?
The letters explained why she had wanted to know me, but not why she had chosen a wedding instead of simply telling me the truth.
I searched the box again and found a final page tucked beneath the velvet lining.
It was addressed to me.
Daniel,
You may wonder why I asked you to marry me.
It was not because I believed a wedding could repair forty years.
It was because, when Joseph and I were young, we planned a wedding that never happened.
