I read it until the words blurred.
My father had been terrified I'd leave.
Instead of telling me, he'd made the decision for me.
He didn't need to hide letters forever.
Only long enough.
By the time I moved out, the damage was done.
My friends believed I'd rejected them.
I believed they'd forgotten me.
After enough unanswered letters, hurt did what my father had counted on. We stopped trying.
I was furious.
But anger had nowhere to go.
My father had been dead for 26 years.
Tommy was dead, and so was Ray.
There are some things an apology cannot restore because everyone who deserves to hear it is already gone.
But Nick wasn't.
And I wasn't going to lose whatever time we had left.
Three weeks later, I stepped off a plane in Portugal.
Luis met me at the airport.
Nick lived with his wife in a small house overlooking the sea.
