And now what has changed?
Michael was lowering his eyes.
I have cancer.
Daniel incense.
“The doctors told me I probably have a few months left. I don’t have a wife. I don’t have children. And I realized that I would die after spending almost my whole life keeping a promise made to a man who is no longer alive.
Then take out a second envelope.
I didn’t come just for that.
Put it on the table.
After Robert’s death, I received this letter.
Daniel immediately recognized his father’s handwriting.
His hands were shaking when he unwrapped the envelope.
The letter was short.
Robert confessed that he regretted the decision.
He said that, regardless of blood, Daniel had been his son and he would always remain his son.
But he wrote something else:
“If one day you have the courage I didn’t have, tell him the truth. I don’t want my hatred to become his legacy.”
Daniel has read that phrase three times.
Then he sat down and started crying.
I had never seen him cry like this before.
Michael didn’t come close.
He didn’t try to hug him.
He just stood in front of him.
“I’m not asking you to call me a father,” he said. I’m not asking you anything. I just wanted you to see me once before I left.
Daniel raises his eyes.
Why do you know where the glasses are?
For the first time, Michael was really smiling.
“Because this apartment was your grandmother’s.
I looked to Daniel.
He seemed as surprised as I was.
“My father told me he bought it after I was born.
– No. This is where you and I grew up. The clock by the window was our father’s. Robert kept it.
Then all the strange things from the previous evening made sense.
Michael didn’t look at the house like a man trying to find out something about us.
He looked at her like a man who had returned home.
That morning, Michael didn’t leave.
He stayed for breakfast.
