“So you waited.”
“I panicked.”
“How long?”
Her lips trembled once. “Long enough.”
The words seemed to age her as she spoke them.
Rowan felt grief strike in a new place. His father’s death had not been the tidy tragedy he had mourned. It had been tangled in silence, pride, fear, and one terrible hesitation that could never be undone.
“And after he died,” Rowan said slowly, “you found the letters.”
“I found most of them.”
Most.
The word rang.
Rowan’s eyes moved to his father’s portrait again.
“What does that mean?”
Evelyn followed his gaze, and fear finally showed itself plainly.
Rowan crossed the room.
“Don’t,” Evelyn said.
He reached behind the portrait frame.
His fingers found nothing at first but dust and old wood. Then they brushed against the edge of something taped to the backing.
An envelope.
Yellowed with age.
Addressed in his father’s handwriting.
