Instead of answering, Harlan reached beneath his blanket.
His hand came out holding a folded piece of paper.
“Go there.”
I didn’t take it.
“No. Whatever this is, you tell me.”
“I can’t.”
“You’ve had thirty-four years.”
“I know.”
His voice cracked.
“I was asked never to tell you. I thought keeping quiet was protecting you. Now I don’t know if I was protecting you or myself.”
He pushed the paper into my palm.
“Go, Elodie. Please.”
“I’m not leaving you like this.”
“You need another person to tell you what I was too ashamed to say.”
Tears slipped into the gray stubble along his cheek.
“Go now.”
Those were the last words Harlan ever spoke to me.
A nurse came in minutes later when his oxygen level dropped. She adjusted his medication and told me he was still alive, but he might not regain consciousness.
I stood in the hallway shaking as I unfolded the paper.
There was an address.
It was less than twenty minutes away from the house where Harlan had raised me.
I nearly tore it up.
Then I remembered his face.
So I drove.
During those twenty minutes, my mind invented every possible betrayal.
Maybe Harlan had abandoned children of his own to raise me.
Maybe he had cheated on his first wife.
Maybe somewhere there was a family that hated me because I had received the father they had lost.
By the time I reached the address, I was furious with him.
The house was small and ordinary, with a yellow porch light burning over the door.
I raised my hand and knocked once.
The door opened almost immediately.
An elderly woman stood there.
Before I could speak, she whispered, “Ellie.”
