“You opened my mail.”
“I was trying to protect you.”
“You opened my mail.”
“Adrian, you had enemies watching every weakness in our family. Evelyn was pregnant, emotional, and frightened. She had already threatened to leave. I believed the letter was an attempt to force you into a marriage you no longer wanted.”
I closed my eyes.
“You decided that without speaking to me?”
“I knew you.”
“No,” I said. “You knew the version of me you had raised.”
There was another silence.
Then she said, “The twins were born into a world that could have harmed them.”
“Because of me?”
“Because of the Moretti name.”
I looked at Evelyn. She was standing beneath the little calendar covered in children’s drawings, listening without interrupting.
“Did you send Evelyn that letter?” I asked.
“I sent one.”
“What did it say?”
“That you had no intention of returning to the marriage. That you would not be pressured into acknowledging children you had not chosen to have.”
