I opened one of the envelopes.
That he could not die knowing she would be alone in the world.
He listed Marta’s address in careful print, and beneath it the number of a bank account he had opened in Grace’s name, funded quietly over the last decade.
I folded the letter with hands that would not stop shaking.
“He used me,” I said.
“He loved you.”
“He used me, Grace.” My voice cracked.
“He used me,”
“He knew I would agree to adopt you. He knew I would never refuse a dying man. So he waited until he was too weak for me to argue with, and handed me his father’s mess to clean up.”
“Please don’t say that.”
“What else would you call it?”
Grace’s eyes filled.
“He said you were the only person good enough to give me a real home. He said you would understand once the shock passed.”
“He knew I would never refuse a dying man.”
“Then he was a coward and a fool.” I stood up, unable to sit still under the weight of it. “He decided what I could handle. He decided what my grief would look like. He decided everything, Grace, and left me holding the ashes.”
She began to cry in earnest then, small shoulders folding forward.
I should have felt something soft for her.
I could not.
“Then he was a coward and a fool.”
“He said you would forgive him,” Grace whispered.
“He was wrong.”
I walked to her room.
I started removing her clothes and placing them on the bed.
Grace watched me, frozen.
“What are you doing?”
“He said you would forgive him,”
“You cannot stay here.”
“Please. I have nowhere.”
“You have Marta. You have the account he set aside for you. You are not my responsibility, Grace. You were never supposed to be.”
“I didn’t ask him to do this,” she said.
Her voice broke on the last word.
“Neither did I.”
“I didn’t ask him to do this,”
I zipped the backpack and set it by the bedroom door.
My hands were steady now, which frightened me more than the shaking had.
“I loved him,” I said. “I loved a man who let me walk through fifteen years blindfolded. Every time I look at you, I will see what he chose to hide from me. I cannot live like that.”
