Lily read one line aloud.
“‘For years, I told myself staying away was the one decent thing I had done. I’m old enough now to understand that sometimes cowardice simply learns better language for itself.’”
She lowered the page.
I said nothing.
The letters did not magically turn Carl into a good father.
They didn’t erase missed birthdays.
They didn’t replace thirteen Christmas mornings.
They didn’t give Lily back all the nights she had waited for a phone call that never came.
If anything, the letters made things more complicated.
Because now we knew Carl had cared.
And sometimes knowing someone cared while still choosing to stay away hurts more than believing they felt nothing.
Eventually Lily placed the final letter on the table.
Then she looked at me.
“I want to talk to him.”
“No.”
The word flew out of me.
Lily stiffened.
I immediately regretted it.
“You just said the truth belongs to me.”
“It does.”
“But only until I want to do something you don’t like with it?”
That stopped me completely.
I had become my father in one sentence.
I took a breath.
“I need one night.”
“Why?”
“Because thirteen years of my life just changed in an hour.”
