“Go there. Now.”
“I can’t leave you.”
“You have to.” Tears slid into the gray stubble along his jaw. “Please, Rosalie.”
He had not called me Rosalie since I was a child.
“I can’t leave you.”
I bent over him.
“Tell me yourself.”
His eyes closed.
“Some truths need another voice.”
Those were the final words he ever said to me.
A nurse entered when the monitor began chirping.
She checked his pulse and adjusted his oxygen.
“He is still with us,” she said. “But he may not wake again.”
“Some truths need another voice.”
***
I stood in the hallway and unfolded the paper.
An address had been written in Frank’s shaky handwriting.
The house was less than 20 minutes from the home where he had raised me.
I nearly threw the paper away.
Whatever waited at that address could not matter more than the man dying behind me.
Then I remembered the fear in his eyes.
I nearly threw the paper away.
Not fear of death.
Fear that I would never understand him.
***
I drove through nearly empty streets, gripping the steering wheel until my fingers ached.
By the time I reached the address, I had imagined every possible betrayal.
A secret wife.
A stranger who would tell me Frank had never wanted me.
I had imagined every possible betrayal.
An elderly woman stood on the other side.
She had silver hair, pale blue eyes, and one hand pressed against her mouth.
She stared at me as if she had been waiting for a ghost.
“Rosalie,” she whispered.
I screamed. Not loudly, but sharply enough that she stepped back.
“Who are you?”
