“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I was ashamed.”
“Of your mother being ill?”
“Of not knowing what to do. Of feeling trapped. Of being angry that everyone expected me to save my family when I was barely old enough to understand my own life.”
He looked toward the window.
“My father told me that if I married you, I would be abandoning them. He said you would resent me for staying. He said I’d eventually blame you.”
“That wasn’t his decision to make.”
“No.” Douglas’s eyes returned to mine. “But at nineteen, I believed older people knew what they were doing.”
I looked down at the ring.
“And the letter?”
His expression changed.
“What letter?”
“The one you sent me in 1986. You told me you were getting married. You asked me not to contact you anymore.”
Douglas stared at me.
“I didn’t write that.”
