I stopped.
My mother knew.
Not only did my father have had a child before their marriage. My mother knew of the existence of my sister for almost twenty-five years.
The letter goes on.
“The night she found out, your mother told me she couldn’t live in a family where I kept lying. He was right. But instead of finding a way to tell the truth and take on my responsibilities to both daughters, we agreed to keep it all secret from you.”
“I kept sending money to Rebecca and seeing Emily when I could. Not often enough. Never enough. And as the years passed, the truth became more and more difficult to tell.”
I left the letter in my lap.
I remembered the holidays where my dad said he had to work. The weekends where a friend was leaving to help. Birthdays when she was late at home and my mother greeted him with a cold look.
