More accurately, she saved us.
Frank wanted to sell after she disappeared because he hated owing someone he could no longer find.
I convinced him not to.
I told him one day we’d make it right.
I wish I had lived long enough to do that myself.
I sat back.
“This is insane.”
Mr. Delgado gave me a sympathetic look.
“There’s more.”
Of course there was.
Frank’s letter continued.
“I recognized your last name the first time we met.”
That sentence hurt more than everything else.
I whispered, “No.”
Mr. Delgado looked away.
Frank and I had met at a charity dinner.
He was 63.
I was 45.
We ended up seated beside each other because two people canceled.
He made a terrible joke about dry chicken.
I laughed.
Three months later, we were dating.
I had believed it was chance.
Frank wrote:
“When you introduced yourself as Patricia, I wondered if you were June’s daughter.”
“Then you mentioned where you grew up.”
“I knew.”
“I should have told you that night.”
“Instead, I panicked.”
“By then, your mother had been dead for six years.”
“Linda was gone for three.”
“I had spent decades carrying an unpaid debt, and suddenly the daughter of the woman I owed was sitting beside me laughing at my stupid joke.”
“I told myself I’d explain after dinner.”
“Then after our second date.”
