Chapter 10 - My Father's Name
I believed the major secrets were over.
Then Arthur found my father's letters.
My father, Michael Reed, had supposedly abandoned me.
That belief shaped my entire adolescence.
After Mom died, he drank heavily.
Lost work.
Moved away.
Stopped calling.
At fourteen, I received one birthday card.
Then nothing.
Grandpa called him irresponsible.
Victoria called him trash.
I believed both.
Arthur found thirty-seven letters.
All addressed to me.
None opened.
They had been intercepted at Blackthorn Hall.
By whom?
The envelopes had been stored in Victoria's old desk.
I nearly couldn't breathe.
She had hidden them.
Every birthday.
Every Christmas.
My father wrote.
I'm sober six months.
I'm trying to get stable.
Henry won't let me speak to you.
I understand why.
Please know I love you.
Another:
I drove past your school today but couldn't make myself go in. I don't want to upset you.
Another:
Victoria says you don't want contact.
My hands shook.
Victoria had told him I rejected him.
She told me he abandoned me.
Why?
Control.
Again.
My father eventually died five years earlier.
I had not known.
Heart disease.
Age fifty-one.
Arthur found one final package.
Inside was a necklace that belonged to my mother.
A note:
For Isabella when she's ready to know I never stopped being her father.
I sat on the floor and sobbed.
Some thefts cannot be repaid.
Victoria stole years from me that money could never reconstruct.
I confronted her.
“Why?”
She stared at the letters.
For once, no denial.
“Henry hated Michael.”
“So?”
“He thought Michael would take you away.”
“Did Grandpa know you hid these?”
“No.”
“Then you did it yourself.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Her face tightened.
“Because you had everything.”
I stared.
“What?”
“Caroline had Dad's love. Then you had it. Michael had you. Everyone had someone.”
“And you had children.”
“Children grow up.”
That was the saddest thing she had ever said.
Not because it excused her.
Because it revealed the emptiness she had spent decades feeding.
“You didn't want me loved.”
She looked away.
“No.”
There it was.
Truth.
Ugly.
Small.
Final.
May you like
I took my father's letters and left.
I never visited Victoria again.
