At my brother Eric’s funeral, I expected sorrow, grief, and the usual blur of condolences. What I didn’t expect was the envelope Laura, his widow, pressed into my hand. “He wanted you to have this,” she said quietly, eyes rimmed red. The handwriting on the envelope was unmistakable—Eric’s. I slipped it into my coat pocket, unsure what to think. Later that evening, alone in my apartment, I opened it. The letter inside wasn’t long, but it shattered the foundation of everything I thought I knew. Eric wasn’t just my older brother—he was my father. He had fathered me when he was just fifteen, with a girl who didn’t want to stay. My parents, still young themselves,

had made the decision to raise me as their own. Eric would be my brother, not my dad. It was cleaner that way, they thought. Less complicated. He’d been told to keep his distance, to let them parent me fully. In the letter, Eric wrote of how much he loved me, even if he couldn’t say it out loud. He had watched me grow up from the sidelines—present, but never quite close. Now I understood the quiet pride in his eyes at every birthday,