Grief makes the world move strangely. At Eric’s funeral, everything felt both too sharp and terribly distant – until his widow handed me the envelope. “He made me promise,” Laura said, her eyes red-rimmed but steady. The paper smelled faintly of his cologne.
I waited until 3 AM to read it, when the night felt big enough to hold whatever truth might come. Nothing could have prepared me. The brother I’d idolized was actually my father. Our parents – his parents – had raised me as their own to spare us both the stigma of teenage parenthood. All those years, Eric loved me from an arm’s length, never letting on that his protectiveness came from something deeper.
When I showed up at our parents’ house with the letter, they crumbled instantly. Their explanations about giving me a “normal life” rang hollow against the weight of decades of lies. The anger came later – hot and righteous – but so did the understanding. Eric sacrificed fatherhood so I could have siblings instead of a teenage dad. That letter is my inheritance now, rewriting every memory with new meaning.
