A larger part, a tired part, just wanted to read the rest of my mother’s letter, because I understood by then that whatever Lonnie knew, Mama had already written down, and hers was the only voice in this house I still trusted.

Mama’s letter ran three pages, and I kept reading.

She wrote that she’d known for years and hadn’t found the courage to tell me — that every time she’d meant to, she’d looked at me making my way in the world despite my leg, despite everything, and had lost her nerve, telling herself the truth would only wound me now with no way to make it right.

She wrote that she’d been wrong about that, and that she was sorrier for her silence than for anything else in her life.