“I think,” she said carefully, “that people who were starved of uncomplicated love spend too long trying to earn it retroactively. It’s not your fault. But yes. Earlier would have been wiser.”
I absorbed that.
Because it was true.
That afternoon I moved into the penthouse temporarily while my private residence—one I had bought quietly six months earlier under a holding company and never yet occupied—was finished being furnished. It sat on the north edge of Harborpoint overlooking the water, all glass and cedar and too much silence for most people. I had bought it because the windows faced sunrise and because there was a workshop on the lower level that reminded me just enough of Grandpa’s garage to feel honest.
The movers set Grandpa’s cedar chest at the foot of my bed.
That night I opened the envelope inside with my name on it.
The paper had yellowed slightly at the folds. Grandpa’s handwriting slanted more than usual, which told me he had probably written it while tired.
Kairen,
If this reaches you, then I have either died before saying a few things properly, or you have finally gotten brave enough to stop waiting for the wrong people to become the right family. Either way, good.