“Force you?”
“You should have explained how serious it was.”
“Whenever I tried to speak to you, you reminded me how valuable your project was.”
“I was doing it for the family.”
“That was always your answer.”
His voice remained low, but every word landed heavily.
“You said the opportunity was for the family. You said the money was for the family. You said every late meeting and every missed call was for the family.”
Evelyn looked away.
Daniel continued.
“For years, you turned every absence into a sacrifice and every complaint into proof that we were ungrateful.”
Evelyn wanted to respond.
Instead, Noah stood.
He walked slowly toward the blue folder and removed a sealed envelope.
He handed it to her.
“This was meant for you.”
Inside was a letter written twelve days earlier.
Noah wrote that he was exhausted from waking every morning feeling guilty for being alive.
He wrote that he did not want to d.i.e.
He simply wanted to stop believing he was the reason his mother had lost her sister.
Evelyn could not finish reading.
She knelt in front of him.
But she did not touch him.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
