My husband had spent years warning me never to set foot on that farm. So after he passed away and the lawyer handed me the key, saying that from now on the place belonged to me, I was ready to sell it right away and put everything behind me. But before making my final decision, I still wanted to see it once for myself. When the door opened, I finally understood why, all those years, he had never wanted me to set foot there.

A watery, involuntary sound escaped her. It might have been a laugh. It might have been a wound opening.

“I should have told you I was sick. I know that. You’ll probably be angry first, and then curious, and then angry again. That seems fair.”

His eyes gentled.

“I wanted your last years with me to feel like life, not a countdown. That was selfish in some ways, and maybe loving in others. You can decide which later.”

He paused. Then his expression changed.

“There’s another reason your mother may be showing you this. My brothers.”

Jenna straightened without realizing it.

“What they are telling you now,” Joshua said, “it’s important you understand that our estrangement was not some dramatic misunderstanding or petty grudge. When I was nineteen, they used my name in fraudulent documents tied to part of our father’s estate. When I threatened to expose it, they made clear I could either stay quiet or be pulled under with them. I left. Changed Jonathan Mitchell to Joshua Mitchell. Came to Minnesota. Started over.”

My daughter went completely still.

The camera caught Joshua leaning closer, voice lower now.