Neither of us answered.
I walked into the living room and placed my father’s photograph on the coffee table.
Raul looked at it.
Then at Veronica.
His expression told me something else.
“You knew too?” I asked.
“No,” he said immediately.
“Not that.”
Veronica closed her eyes.
“Raul knew your grandparents had contacted me.”
He stared at her.
“I knew there had been arguments years ago.
I did not know you told Valentina they stopped reaching out.”
For the first time that night, Veronica looked completely alone.
“Show me the letters,” I said.
She walked to a cabinet beneath the stairs.
Behind a stack of old tax folders was a small metal box.
She carried it to the dining table and opened it.
Inside were envelopes.
Dozens of them.
Some were addressed in my grandmother’s handwriting.
Others came from my grandfather.
A few had birthday cards inside them, still sealed.
My name appeared again and again.
Valentina.
Vale.
Our granddaughter.
My hands went numb.
The oldest envelope was from shortly after my father’s funeral.
I opened it.
My grandmother wrote that she was angry with Veronica but did not want that anger to cost her a relationship with me.
She asked to see me for one afternoon.
Another letter came two weeks later.
Then another.
There were apologies for harsh words said at the funeral.
Requests for supervised visits.
Christmas invitations.
Photographs of my father as a child.
One birthday card contained twenty dollars and a note saying my grandfather hoped I was still drawing horses.
I had been eight.
I had loved drawing horses.
I sat down.
“You kept these.”
Veronica nodded.
“Why?”
She pulled out a chair but did not sit until I did.
“After your father died, your grandmother wanted you with them.”
“I remember.”
“She said I had known you only a few years.
She said blood mattered.
She said Julian had been grieving when he married me and that maybe he had confused gratitude with love.”
Veronica swallowed.
“I had already lost him.
I thought I was about to lose you too.”
“You had adopted me.”
“I knew what the papers said.
