Another silence.
“Dad…”
“Rachel, I can explain. Please don’t open the envelope.”
I looked down at my name.
“Why does everybody keep saying that?”
“Because it isn’t how I wanted you to find out.”
“Then you shouldn’t have taped it underneath a table.”
He arrived 20 minutes later.
He looked older when he saw the photograph in my hands.
“Mom did this?”
Dad nodded. “At home. I brought it here after she died.”
He sat in his usual chair. Helen moved to leave.
I blocked her. “No. If Mom erased you from the photograph, you’re staying.”
Dad flinched.
I set the list between them. “Start talking.”
Dad looked at Helen. Helen said, “You tell her.”
He rubbed both hands over his face.
“Your mother knew I wouldn’t try to date again.”
“Apparently she was wrong.”
“No. She was right.”
He tapped the list. “For five years, I never opened it.”
“Why start?”
“Because of you.”
I stared at him.
“On your 39th birthday, you told me you wanted me to have a life.”
I remembered.
Dad nodded. “That night I opened the box.”
“What box?”
“The blue one your mother left in my closet.”
Helen looked away.
Dad explained that inside the box were seven sealed envelopes.
