I was young, arrogant, and terrified of poverty, the letter went on. When Eleanor’s father offered me a partnership in his shipping empire, on the absolute condition that I sever all ties with my past, I chose the money.

I chose the prestige.

I let Eleanor’s family buy out my past, and I left you and your mother Clara behind, with a modest trust fund that I told myself would provide for you.

Your grandmother’s scoundrel of an attorney embezzled that trust fund six months later, a crime I did not discover until decades too late.

So I did not even leave you money.

I left you nothing but the lie of my death, and a childhood of poverty, while I built an empire on the life I had abandoned. I read those words, and I did not know what I felt.