Evelyn, my love,
If you’re reading this, it means I’m gone. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you this earlier. There’s something I hid from you for most of my life, but you deserve to know the truth. Before I met you, before our Saturdays and our children and the home we built, I made a promise to someone I didn’t know how to keep in the open. I was young and afraid. I did what I thought would protect you later, but it also meant I carried a secret beside our love.
You urgently need to go to this address. Please go. Please listen. Please forgive me—not because I’m owed it, but because you deserve peace. And Evelyn… even if you’re angry, please know this: Every Saturday flower was always for you. Always. —Thomas
At the bottom was an address. An hour away.
My grandmother sat down hard in her chair, as if her knees had decided they didn’t work anymore. “A secret?” she breathed. Her fingers clutched the paper. “After fifty-seven years… Thomas had a secret?”
I didn’t trust my voice. My mind ran wild with possibilities, each one worse than the last. She looked at the flowers, then at the empty space where my grandfather should have been. Her eyes filled, but the tears didn’t fall. They just hung there, trapped behind shock.
“I held his hand,” she said, almost accusingly. “I held his hand when he died. Why wouldn’t he tell me then?”
I knelt beside her chair. “He’s telling you now,” I said gently. “In the only way he can.”
She swallowed, her jaw tightening. “Get your jacket,” she said, voice suddenly firm. “We’re going.”
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