Dwayne didn’t touch it. He just stared at the envelope with an expression I’d never seen on him, helpless, stripped, a child’s face on a man’s body.
“What is it?”
“The last page of the letter. He wrote it to me, but there’s a part for you.” I swallowed. “Read it.”He opened the envelope with trembling fingers. He read for a long time. When he finished, he let the page fall into his lap and put both hands over his face, and his shoulders began to shake.
I sat and let him. Marlene had appeared silently in the doorway. She put a hand to her mouth.
After a while, Dwayne spoke, his voice muffled.
“He knew.”
“He knew.”
“He knew all those years.” His voice cracked. “And he never said, he never once said anything. I thought he looked down on me. I thought he thought I was a failure.”
