“Please send me your location. I’m coming to get you.”
I sent it to her.
For the next forty minutes, I sat several yards away from my father. Neither of us spoke.
He did not try to approach me or explain himself again.
When Mom’s car finally appeared at the gate, I ran toward her.
She stepped out before the engine had stopped and wrapped her arms around me.
I cried against her shoulder, asking the same question over and over.
“Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you tell me?”
She held me tighter.
“Because we were cowards, darling. We thought keeping the secret would protect you. We never understood that the secret itself could hurt you.”
I went home with her.
Dad followed in his own car.
That evening, I refused to eat. I sat in my bedroom with the door locked, staring at the photograph he had given me.
