“Why?”
“Because she was going to turn your life upside down. I was the one raising you.”
“So was she.”
He didn’t respond.
“You told me my mother was dead.”
“I thought it would be simpler.”
“Simpler for who?”
Silence.
Finally, he admitted the truth.
“I was afraid she’d take you away from me.”
“Did she ever threaten to?”
A pause.
“No.”
“Then you weren’t protecting me. You were protecting yourself.”
He became angry.
“Don’t tell me how I should have raised you!”
“There it is,” I said. “The same old story. Except I’m not a child anymore.”
I asked him about the stolen money again.
The envelope.
The cash.
He said nothing.
And this time, I understood exactly what his silence meant.
“That was cruel, Dad. You made me believe she abandoned me.”
For once, he didn’t argue.
I told him I needed some distance.
He ended the call.
That was all the confirmation I needed.
Anna had been telling me the truth.
Part 7
Over the next few weeks, Anna and I did something neither of us really knew how to do.
We started again.
We didn’t pretend the lost years hadn’t happened.
