“Then you mentioned where you grew up.”
“I knew.”
“I should have told you that night.”
“Instead, I panicked.”
“By then, your mother had been dead for six years.”
“Linda was gone for three.”
“I had spent decades carrying an unpaid debt, and suddenly the daughter of the woman I owed was sitting beside me laughing at my stupid joke.”
“I told myself I’d explain after dinner.”
“Then after our second date.”
“Then after I knew you better.”
“Then I fell in love with you.”
“And the truth became harder.”
I put the letter down.
“No.”
Mr. Delgado stayed silent.
Anger started rising.
Not because Frank knew my mother.
Because he married me without telling me.
“Did he marry me because of the debt?”
Mr. Delgado answered carefully.
“I can’t tell you what Frank felt.”
I looked back at the letter.
Apparently Frank knew I would ask.
“No, Pat.”
“I did not marry you because of what I owed June.”
“If anything, the debt nearly made me walk away from you.”
“I was ashamed.”
But I loved you.
“I loved that you read the final page of mystery novels first and then lied about it.”
“I loved that you sang harmony even when nobody else was singing.”
