I could not lie. Not anymore.
“There may be things about your guardianship I didn’t know,” I said.
His face changed. Not dramatically. Just enough that I knew the words had reached him.
Denise stepped forward. “Simon, I wanted to explain.”
He lifted one hand. “Not here.”
The same phrase Mom had used, but from him it sounded different. Not avoidance. Boundary.
He handed me one envelope. “This came from the scholarship table. They said it was mailed to the school and marked for my family.”
I frowned. “From who?”
“I don’t know. There’s no return address.”
The envelope was cream-colored and thick, the kind used for wedding invitations. My name was written across the front in careful blue ink.
Joanna Miller.
I opened it with unsteady fingers.
Inside was a photograph.
For a second, I did not understand what I was seeing.
It showed Denise in a hospital bed, younger and exhausted, holding newborn Simon wrapped in the yellow blanket I remembered. Beside her stood a man I had never seen before. He was tall, with sandy hair and gentle eyes, one hand resting on the edge of the crib.
On the back, someone had written:
He deserves the truth before they choose it for him again.
My mouth went dry.
Simon leaned closer. “Mom?”
Denise saw the photograph and went completely still.
The color drained from her face so quickly I thought she might faint.
“Where did you get that?” she whispered.
“It came to the school,” Simon said.