I thought about my mother lying on her kitchen floor while the man she had welcomed into our family stepped over her body searching for it.
I thought about eighteen million dollars.
And how ridiculous money seemed beside fifteen years.
At midnight, my mother came onto the porch wearing a robe.
“You’re here.”
“I’m here.”
She sat beside me.
For a while, neither of us spoke.
Then she noticed the papers.
“What happened?”
I handed her Dad’s letter.
She read it slowly.
By the end, tears were moving down her cheeks.
“I knew he worried about Ryan.”
My head snapped toward her.
“What?”
“Not like this.”
“You knew?”
“Your father mentioned the study once. He said Ryan asked too many questions.”
“And you didn’t tell me?”
“He asked me not to.”
I stood so quickly the chair scraped backward.
“You both knew something was wrong and nobody told me?”
