Chương 7
I stopped reading.
"That's not an excuse," I said.
Glen nodded.
"No."
I looked at him.
"You agree?"
"Yes."
The answer surprised me.
"You don't think he was misunderstood?"
Glen shook his head.
"I think he loved her."
"That doesn't answer the question."
"No."
He looked at the letter.
"I think people can love someone and still hurt them."
That was the first thing Glen had said all night that did not feel like he was trying to defend someone.
It felt honest.
I kept reading.
The letters were not written like someone creating a perfect story about himself.
My father admitted things.
He admitted he was scared.
He admitted he avoided difficult conversations.
He admitted that every year he waited made it harder to reach out.
The worst part was how familiar it sounded.
Not the details.
The pattern.
My father was a man who fixed broken furniture but avoided broken relationships.
He could rebuild a cabinet.
He could repair a roof.
He could spend twelve hours replacing a damaged floor.
But when emotions became complicated, he disappeared into silence.
I had spent years thinking that was just his personality.
Now I wondered if it was a wound.
A habit passed down from fear.
"Why didn't Clara tell me?" I asked.
Glen looked at the box.
"I think she was trying to protect you."
I laughed softly.
"Everyone keeps saying that."
He looked at me.
"What?"
"Everyone decides what I can handle."
The room became quiet.
I looked around the kitchen.
The same kitchen where we had celebrated birthdays.
The same kitchen where we had argued about paint colors.
The same kitchen where Ariel had taken her first steps.
A place filled with memories.
And suddenly I wondered how many things could exist in a home without us knowing.
"I need to find her," I said.
Glen nodded.
"I know."
"No."
I looked at him.
"I mean me."
His expression changed.
"Okay."
"I don't want you to fix this."
"I wasn't going to."
"You were."
He opened his mouth.
Then stopped.
Because he knew I was right.
Glen solved problems because he loved people.
But sometimes solving a problem meant taking control of something that was not his.
"I need to do this because she is my sister," I said.
The word sounded unfamiliar.
Sister.
I had spent my whole life as an only child.
Suddenly, I was not.
Glen nodded slowly.
"Okay."
I looked at him.
"Are you going to tell me everything?"
"Yes."
"Even if it makes your family look bad?"
His face tightened.
"My family isn't the important part."
That answer mattered.
More than I expected.
Because for the first time since this started, I believed he understood.
The next morning, I called Clara.
She answered after two rings.
"Did you read them?"
I stood by the kitchen window.
"Yes."
A long silence followed.
"Are you angry?"
I looked outside.
A neighbor was walking a dog.
A delivery driver was dropping off a package.
Someone across the street was watering flowers.
Ordinary things.
"I don't know what I am."
Clara exhaled.
"That's fair."
"I need more information."
"I know."
"Please stop saying that."
A small silence.
Then, unexpectedly, she laughed.
Not loudly.
Just a tired little laugh.
"Your father used to say that to me."
I frowned.
"What?"
"When he didn't know what else to say."
That hurt because I could imagine it.
My father standing somewhere, uncomfortable, trying to make a problem smaller with two words.
"I found Rebecca's contact information," Clara said.
My grip tightened around the phone.
"How?"
"Your father kept everything."
That sounded exactly like him.
"Where?"
"In the box."
I looked toward the table.
The letters.
The photograph.
The pieces of a person I thought I knew.
"Why didn't you call her?"
Clara was quiet.
"I did."
My heart stopped.
"You did?"
"Years ago."
"What happened?"
"She answered."
The pause afterward was painful.
"And?"
Clara's voice became softer.
"She told me Lily didn't want anything to do with your father anymore."
I looked down.
"Is that true?"
"I don't know."
The answer frustrated me.
But I was beginning to understand something.
Everyone around my father had been living with incomplete information.
Everyone had been making choices based on pieces.
"What happened to Lily?" I asked.
Clara hesitated.
"That's the part I never told you."
My hand tightened around the phone.
"What part?"
"She was not the only thing your father lost."
I waited.
"Your father had another secret."
I closed my eyes.
Not again.
Not another hidden room.
Not another piece of a life I thought belonged to me.
"What secret?"
Clara's voice dropped.
"Before Lily disappeared from his life, your father made a promise."
"What promise?"
"That he would find her."
I stared at the wall.
"Then why didn't he?"
The answer came quietly.
"Because someone convinced him she was better off without him."
A cold feeling moved through me.
"Who?"
Clara did not answer.
I already knew from her silence that the name mattered.
"Clara."
She breathed in.
"Me."
I could not speak for several seconds.
Not because I did not understand her.
Because I did.
There are moments when a person tells you something and your mind immediately searches for another explanation.
A misunderstanding.
A missing detail.
A reason the words do not mean what they clearly mean.
I wanted one.
I wanted Clara to say she was talking about something else.
I wanted her to laugh and tell me I had misunderstood.
She did not.
"I told him to leave it alone," she said.
I sat down on the edge of the chair near the window.
"Why?"
Clara was quiet.
The question seemed simple.
But I could hear how much history was buried underneath it.
"Because I thought I was protecting him."
"And Lily?"
She closed her eyes.
"I thought I was protecting her too."
I felt anger rise again.
"From what?"
Clara looked at me.
"From your father."
May you like
The answer made me uncomfortable.
Not because I believed it.
