Curiosity eventually won.
Around midnight I returned to the attic with bolt cutters and broke open the trunk.
Inside were hundreds of letters.
They were carefully organized by date and tied together with faded ribbons. Each one was addressed to Martha.
Every letter was signed by the same man.
Daniel.
I opened the earliest one.
It was dated 1966.
The year Martha and I got married.
By the time I finished the first handful of letters, it felt like someone had punched the air out of my lungs.
Every single letter ended the same way:
“I’ll come for you and our son when the time is right.”
Our son.
As I kept reading, the truth slowly came together.
Daniel had been writing to Martha about a child for years.
He wrote about secretly watching “little James” grow up.
James—my eldest son. The boy I raised, coached in baseball, and guided through life.
The next morning I drove straight to the care center with the letters in my pocket.
When Martha saw them, she broke down immediately.
Through tears she finally told me everything.
Before she ever met me, she had been engaged to Daniel.
