Nobody argued.
Night ten. Letter ten.
This one was about Harrison.
Warren read slowly.
“Five years ago, I was diagnosed with a heart condition. The doctor said maybe ten years, maybe less. I didn’t tell your mother. I didn’t tell any of you. I wanted you to live your lives without worrying about me. But you didn’t live. You wasted your lives on things that don’t matter. And now I’m gone. And you’re here because you want money, not because you loved me. That’s my greatest failure—not the heart condition.”
Silence.
Naomi looked at me. “Mom, did you know?”
“No,” I said. “He never told me.”
Her face crumpled.
I felt anger and grief twist together. Harrison had carried that alone for five years. Five years of knowing, and he’d never said a word.
I wanted to scream at him. I wanted to hold him. But he was gone.
After that night, nobody spoke. Warren left. My daughters sat in silence—Naomi staring at the floor, Rosalind with arms crossed, Celeste with her head in her hands.
I stood and walked to the stairs.
“Good night,” I said.
Nobody answered.
I went upstairs, sat on my bed, and stared at the wall.
Halfway through, I thought.
Fifteen letters left.
Can they survive the rest?
By night eleven, something had changed. They weren’t arguing anymore. They were listening.
The next few letters were different—softer. Not about who my daughters used to be, but about who we used to be together.
Letter eleven: Christmas, when Naomi was ten.
We’d driven to the Blue Ridge cabin. It snowed. The girls built a snowman. Harrison made hot chocolate. We sat by the fire until midnight.
“I don’t want you to remember me as the father who judged you,” Warren read. “I want you to remember the father who loved you.”
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