My throat tightened.
I hadn’t known about any letter.
“She told us exactly what she thought of how we treated you,” Paul said.
“And she told us what she wanted us to do about it.”
The room behind them had gone completely silent.
Everyone was watching me.
I took one step toward the door.
Then Daniel said something that stopped me where I stood.
—
What did their mother write in that letter — and what did she ask them to do?
“She said she was ashamed of us.”
The words landed like something physical.
I stood on my own front step in my graduation gown, and I could not move.
Daniel’s jaw was tight.
He wasn’t reading from anything.
He had memorized it.
“She wrote it six weeks before she passed,” he said.
“She knew she was running out of time.
She said she’d been watching us treat you like your life was already over, and she couldn’t leave without saying something about it.”
