She was not merely lying.

She was attempting to take from me the one thing I had left after she took everything else, which was my daughters’ trust, their knowledge of who had actually stayed and who had actually gone.

She had already taken their mother from them.

Now she wanted to take their father too, to leave them with no true parent in their own history, so that her version could stand unopposed.

That was the letter I held in my hand at that kitchen table, and it was the moment I stopped being able to argue against opening the box.