I stopped.
Not because I wanted to.
Because my legs simply wouldn’t move.
The envelope was lying face-up on the paving.
My name.
Daniel.
Written exactly the way she’d written my name on birthday cards, notes left beside the kettle, and the stupid little messages she’d used to leave inside my work bag.
For four years, I’d believed the last thing she’d ever written to me was that she had met someone else.
But there it was.
An envelope she had apparently carried with her for years.
“Daniel?”
My fiancée’s voice came from behind me.
I turned.
She was standing several metres away, confused and annoyed.
“Who is that woman?”
I looked back toward the corner.
My ex was gone.
The buggy was gone.
Three children who looked enough like me to make my stomach turn were gone.
Only the envelope remained.
I picked it up.
My hands were shaking.
“Daniel, what are you doing?”
I didn’t answer.
I tore open the envelope.
Inside was a single folded sheet of paper.
The first line made the entire park disappear again.
I didn’t leave you.
I read it twice.
Then a third time.
My chest tightened.
Below it:
I lied because I was told that if I contacted you, they would take the babies away.
I stopped breathing.
Babies.
Plural.
My eyes moved down the page.
You need to know something before you hate me for the rest of your life.
Then another line.
The three babies are yours.
I sat down on the nearest bench.
My fiancée said something.
I couldn’t hear her.
I read the page again.
And again.
There were no dramatic explanations.
No excuses.
Just dates.
Names.
A hospital.
A lawyer.
And one sentence underlined twice.
Daniel, your father knew.
I stared at that sentence until the letters blurred.
My father.
Dead for two years.
My father had been the only person I’d ever told about the letter she’d sent me.
I’d sat across from him at his kitchen table when I came home from offshore.
I’d said, “She’s with someone else.”
He’d looked at me for a long time.
Then he’d simply said, “Some things are better left alone.”
At the time, I’d thought he was trying to protect me.
Now I couldn’t remember ever hating him before.
I hated him then.
I folded the letter.
My fiancée came closer.
“Daniel, tell me what’s going on.”
I looked at her.
For the first time since we’d started planning our wedding, I had absolutely no idea what to say.
Then my phone rang.
Unknown number.
I answered.
“Hello?”
A man’s voice said, “You found the envelope.”
I stood.
“Who is this?”
There was silence.
Then:
“Don’t go looking for her.”
My grip tightened around the phone.
“Where is she?”
“That’s not the question you should be asking.”
“What happened to the children?”
Another pause.
Then the man said something that made my blood run cold.
“One of those children isn’t supposed to be alive.”
The call ended.
I stared at the screen.
My fiancée was crying now.
“Daniel…”
I looked toward the road where my ex had disappeared.
Four years ago, I thought she’d chosen another man.
This morning, I had been walking through a park planning my wedding.
Now I was standing there holding proof that I had three children.
And someone had spent four years making sure I never found out.
I looked down at the letter one more time.
There was one final sentence at the bottom.
I hadn’t noticed it before.
It was written smaller than everything else.
If you still want the truth, go to the old flat tonight at 11:30. Come alone.
And underneath it was an address.
My old address.
The place where she and I had lived together.
The place I hadn’t seen in four years.
I folded the paper and put it inside my coat.
Then my fiancée asked the question I knew would change everything.
“Are you going to marry me?”
I looked at her.
And for the first time, I couldn’t lie.