Chapter 28 - My Father’s Final Letter
My father died in prison after a stroke.
Before his death, he wrote me a letter.
I waited months to open it.
He described the crash.
The panic.
The decision to protect Dylan.
Then the lies that followed.
He wrote:
Every time the truth threatened to surface, I made another choice to preserve the first lie. Eventually, protecting Dylan became easier than admitting what protecting him had done to you.
He did not ask for forgiveness.
He said he knew he had no right.
My mother remained incarcerated.
She sent letters blaming him.
Blaming Dylan.
Blaming Nora.
Never herself.
I stopped reading them.
My father’s letter did not repair our relationship.
But it gave language to the mechanism that destroyed us.
One lie required another.
One protected child required one sacrificed child.
One family image required a real family to disappear beneath it.
I placed the letter beside the crash report and the original foundation ledgers.
May you like
Not as forgiveness.
As evidence.
