So I made a choice.

I decided to let everyone believe the lie.

I let them all think I was just a reckless teenager who had gotten pregnant and didn’t even know who the father was.

I let them think that about me so that you would be safe.

It was the price of protecting you, and I paid it, and I would pay it again.

And then the letter turned, and became the thing it had truly been written to be, which was a mother’s last instructions for her child.