"Yes."
"Where is it?"
"In my safe."
"You've kept it from me for eleven years?"
"Yes."
I stood without meaning to and walked to the window, because standing near him felt suddenly impossible. My mother had left me a letter. Eleven years I'd built my grief around silence, around forgetting the exact sound of her laugh unless I heard it in a dream. And this whole time, there had been words. Her words. Hidden.
"You should have trusted me," I said.
"I know," Walter whispered, and when I turned, his eyes were wet. I had watched this man negotiate with government ministers without blinking. I had watched him bury my parents with a straight spine and shaking hands. I had almost never seen him cry.
"I told myself I was giving you time," he said. "Then time became habit. Habit became silence. And silence became something I was ashamed to break. I failed you there."
