had refused to hear while she was alive.
“Why?” Daniel asked.
Samuel’s eyes filled, though no tears fell.
“Because Robert told me her last letter explained why she left.”
Daniel’s jaw tightened.
“She left because you terrified her.”
“Yes.”
Samuel did not deny it.
That surprised all of us.
“I know what I was.”
He looked suddenly ancient.
“I just wanted to know whether, at any point, she had loved me.”
Daniel’s anger flickered.
Not into forgiveness.
But into something more complicated.
“You could have asked.”
“I was proud.”
“You terrorized everyone for fifteen years because you were proud?”
Samuel closed his eyes.
“Yes.”
It was the smallest answer he had given us.
And perhaps the truest.
Daniel looked at the key.
Then at me.
“What should I do?”
I thought about Robert’s letters.
About secrets.
About all the damage caused by deciding which truths other people could handle.
