I Finally Found All Three

“I never wanted you to find out this way, Elliot,” she murmured, her back to me.

I stopped just short of touching her, respecting the twenty years of distance still between us.

“Why didn’t you fight harder to reach me?” My voice cracked under the weight of it. “I would have burned the world down for you.”

She turned, firelight catching fresh tears. “You don’t understand the kind of monster your mother is.” She pulled the old photograph from her pocket and pointed at the black writing across the front.

I finally found all three. “She didn’t just threaten me. She showed me medical records — records she’d paid a doctor to fake, documenting that I was mentally unstable.”

She took a ragged breath.