Younger.
Sunburned.
Exhausted.
Smiling beside three other sailors in front of a gray, ugly building somewhere I had not been allowed to name at the time.
On the back, in my own handwriting, I had written:
Still here. Still finishing. Wish you believed me.
My throat closed.
My mother whispered, “I did believe you for one night.”
I looked up.
“What?”
“The night that photo came. I believed you. I told your father something was wrong with Grant’s story.”
My father looked away.
“What happened?”
She wiped her face.
“Grant came over. He cried. He said you were trying to destroy him because he wouldn’t send you money. He said you had threatened to fake your career just to shame us.”
I could barely breathe.
“And you believed that?”
“I chose to.”
That answer stunned me more than any excuse.
My mother lifted her chin through tears.
“I chose to because if Grant was lying, then we had already done something unforgivable.”
No one spoke.
There it was.
The first honest thing my mother had given me in eight years.
Not I was tricked.
Not I didn’t know.
Not I meant well.
I chose to.
My father’s voice was low.
“Judith, enough.”
She turned toward him.
“No. Not enough. That is what got us here.”
Rachel stepped closer.
“Mrs. Moore, we should continue inside.”
My mother nodded.
Then looked at me.
“I gave them the letters I kept. And a recording.”
My stomach tightened.
“What recording?”
She glanced at my father.
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