Ask your father #DramaAlert #DramaSeries #fatherandson

My father told me my mother had died when I was eight.

For twenty-one years, I believed him.

Then I found an envelope in his attic with my name on the front and my mother’s handwriting inside.

She had written it on my fifteenth birthday.

I drove to Dad’s house with the envelope on the passenger seat. I had taken it home that morning after finding it, telling myself I needed time to think. By evening, the questions were making me feel sick.

The living room was dim when I arrived. Dad sat in his usual chair, holding a cup of coffee he had forgotten to drink.

He smiled when he saw me.

“Grace. You should have called. I’d have made dinner.”

I stayed near the doorway.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

His smile slipped. “Tell you what?”

I had practiced the question in my car. Now I could barely get it out.

“That Mom wrote to me.”

He looked down at his cup.

The silence that followed frightened me more than any answer could have.

When I was little, Dad had given me a simple story. My mother, Elena, had been killed in a highway accident. There had been no funeral I could attend because, he said, I was too young. I remembered crying into his coat while he promised he would always take care of me.

I had asked about the accident less often as I grew older. I thought speaking of it hurt him.

“Dad.”

He rubbed his thumb over the cup’s handle.

“Some secrets are meant to protect you,” he said.

I reached into my bag and took out the envelope. It had been tucked inside a box of Christmas decorations in his attic. The paper was yellow at the edges. Across the front, in careful blue ink, were the words For Grace, on her fifteenth birthday.

Inside was a letter about the day I was born.

My mother remembered how I had gripped one of her fingers in my tiny hand. She remembered Dad falling asleep beside my hospital bed, still wearing his coat. She hoped I liked reading. She said she thought of me every day.

At the bottom, she had written, I am here, sweetheart. Please ask your father where to find me.

The date was seven years after the accident.

I held the envelope out.

Dad finally looked up.

His eyes widened. He set his cup down so quickly coffee spilled across the table.

“Where did you get that?”

“In the attic. There were others.”

His face lost all its color.

“How many?”

I swallowed. “I didn’t count.”

He came toward me and caught my arm. I had never known him to grab me like that. His fingers tightened around my sleeve.

“Did you take anything else?”

“Let go.”

He released me at once.

“I’m sorry.” His voice shook. “I didn’t mean to frighten you.”

“You’ve been frightening me since I opened this.”

He stared at the envelope. I watched him recognize the writing.

“Is she alive?” I asked.

He did not answer.

I thought of every birthday when I had wished she could see me. I thought of my graduation, when I had carried her photograph in the pocket of my gown.

“Tell me she’s alive.”

Dad turned away.

I had come prepared to hear that he had found one letter too late, or that there was a date I had misunderstood. I had not prepared myself for the sight of him standing with his back to me, unable to deny it.

“She is,” he said.

My knees weakened. I sat on the edge of the couch.

For twenty-one years, my mother had been somewhere in the world. She had breathed the same air, watched the same birthdays come and go. She had known I was alive.

“Where?”

“I don’t know where she lives now.”

“Did you know then?”

“Yes.”

“Did she write other letters?”

Dad pressed a hand over his eyes.

“Yes.”

I looked at the envelope in my lap. I had stopped reading the first letter halfway through because I was afraid the words would vanish. There were more of them upstairs.

“Why did you keep them?”

“It wasn’t that simple.”

“It was simple when you told me she died.”

He winced.

I stood and moved toward the hallway. I needed the rest of the letters. I needed proof I could carry away from his house before he decided to hide them again.

Dad stepped into my path.

“Grace, listen to me. Your grandmother was involved. Elena was accused of something serious.”

“Then tell me what happened.”

“I will.”

“Now.”

A knock struck the front door.

Dad went still.

Three more knocks followed, loud enough to echo through the house.

I looked at the door, then back at him.

“Are you expecting someone?”

“No.”

But he looked frightened again. He crossed the room and turned off the lamp beside his chair.