“Once, when I was 27, my uncle asked me, ‘Are you a virgin?’ From that moment on, I started to be afraid of him. A few days later, when he took me to a hotel just outside the city, he leaned over to my ear by the pool and whispered, ‘After the pool, get in my room…’”

 

He let out a soft laugh.

 

“I’ve never been good at keeping secrets.”

 

Then I remembered something.

 

I looked at him.

 

“Why did you ask me if I was a virgin?”

 

His face turned red instantly.

 

For a moment, he seemed completely embarrassed.

 

“I was trying to ask you if your relationship was serious, if you were building your life around someone else, if you were making your own decisions.”

 

I stared at it.

 

“And somehow that became, ‘Are you a virgin?’”

 

Richard covered his face with one hand.

 

“I know. It may have been the worst question I’ve ever asked.”

 

For the first time that day, I laughed.

 

That night, we

We stayed in room 214 until almost midnight, opening my father’s letters one by one.

 

Three months later, I opened my little photography studio.