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.

Color drained from his face.

Finally he whispered, “How long have you known?”

“I don’t know what’s in it,” I said. “Only that Joshua believed you might need it one day.”

He handed the letter to Allan without answering me. David stood and read over Allan’s shoulder. Their expressions moved through the same sequence, disbelief, recoil, recognition, fear.

“This can’t be right,” Allan said.

“It is,” Robert replied hoarsely. “It explains too much.”

I let the silence ripen until it was unbearable.

Then I said, “Would someone like to tell me what my husband wrote?”

Robert looked up as if remembering I was there.

“Joshua discovered that our mother didn’t die giving birth to him,” he said.

I stared.

“What?”

“Our father lied. She left him when Joshua was an infant. Couldn’t bear the abuse anymore. He told us she’d died in childbirth because it was more useful to him.”

The room seemed to tilt slightly.

“There’s more,” David said, still holding the letter. “Our father had another family. A long-term relationship in Saskatchewan. Two more children. Our half brother and half sister. In their forties now.”

Dr. Harmon straightened sharply. Mr. Pearson blinked twice behind his glasses.