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.”

“Oh, sweetheart.

That must have been a shock.

Frank should have told you years ago — I always thought so.

But he was protecting you.

That was Frank.”

“From what, though?” I asked.

“What was he protecting me from?”

“From grief, I suppose.

From questions that didn’t have good answers.”

“I found a letter too,” I said.

“Frank wrote it recently.

While he was ill.”

Gerald picked up his mug again.

A small recalibration of his hands.

“He wrote about Catherine’s death,” I said.

“He had questions about it.

He’d been looking into it for a long time.”

“Frank had a lot of time to think in that hospital.” Gerald’s voice was gentle, careful.

“Illness does things to the mind, Claire.

It makes people look for reasons, for meaning.

It’s not uncommon to—”

“He found a nurse,” I said.

“From the night Catherine d*ed.

She wrote a statement.”