My sister laughed through her tears.
I looked down at the photograph.
“I’m sorry we didn’t have more time, Mom.”
The wind moved gently through the trees.
For a moment, I imagined Eleanor sitting beside me, wearing her purple cardigan and complaining about the weather.
Then I stood, took Rebecca’s hand, and walked away.
I could not give Eleanor back the forty years she had lost.
I could not give my father another chance to tell me the truth.
But I could stop letting their silence define the rest of my life.
That evening, I returned home and found Margaret waiting at the kitchen table.
She had placed an old photograph album in front of her.
“Come here,” she said.
I sat beside her.
She opened the album to a picture of me as a newborn, wrapped in a blue blanket.
My father stood beside her, one hand resting on her shoulder.
