I know I don’t deserve your forgiveness, but I am asking for your mercy. Please meet her. Please help her if you can. It is the last thing I cannot fix myself.”
“I told myself it was temporary.”
I sat back against a box of Christmas decorations and stared at the beams overhead.
Daniel hadn’t confessed because he wanted the truth to come out; he did it because he was dying. Because he knew he wouldn’t be there to send the next check, and his secret would collapse without him.
I felt anger rising through my grief.
“You don’t get to make this my responsibility! You don’t get to die and leave me riddles!” I shouted into the attic.
Footsteps creaked below.
“You don’t get to die and leave me riddles!”
“Mom?” Caleb called.
“I’m fine, sweetheart!” I lied again.
I shoved the papers into my arms and climbed down. Back in our bedroom, I spread everything across the bed. There was a return address on one of Caroline’s letters. Birch Lane.
