My stepdad raised me after I lost my mother — just hours before he d*ed, he gripped my hand and whispered, “There’s something I’ve hidden from you your entire life.”

I read.

Frank had met Catherine Reyes at twenty-three.

Gerald Marsh had introduced them — Gerald, who was two years older, who had grown up with Frank, who had been the best man at their wedding.

What Frank had not known, not then, was that Gerald had been in love with Catherine first.

That Gerald had introduced them believing Catherine would eventually choose him.

That when she chose Frank instead, something in Gerald had gone very quiet and very wrong.

Catherine’s death had been ruled a complication of childbirth.

Hemorrhage.

Tragic but not uncommon.

The hospital had closed the file.

But Frank had kept asking questions for thirty years.

He had found a nurse — retired now, living in Arizona — who had been on duty that night.

She had written a statement.

It was folded inside the envelope, paper-clipped to Frank’s letter.