The words hit harder than they should have.
Because deep down, I knew he was right.
Still, I couldn’t accept it.
“You don’t understand what happened.”
“Then tell her.”
“I was trying to protect her.”
“From what?”
I opened my mouth.
Nothing came out.
From what?
That was the question I’d avoided for years.
The truth was that I hadn’t only been protecting Iris.
I’d been protecting myself.
Protecting myself from her questions.
From her anger.
From the possibility that one day she would look at me and ask why I had lied.
And now that day had arrived.
I heard footsteps.
Iris appeared in the doorway carrying a glass of water.
She stopped when she saw our faces.
Her smile disappeared.
“Mom?”
I looked at her.
My little girl.
Except she wasn’t little anymore.
She was seventeen.
She had just spent the most important night of her high school years with a boy she admired, and instead of coming home simply excited about prom, she had come home carrying the weight of a family secret.
“What’s going on?”
Ryan looked at me.
Five minutes.
He didn’t say the words.
He didn’t need to.
Iris placed the glass on the table.
“Mom?”
I sat down.
“I need to tell you something.”
Her expression changed immediately.
“Is it about Dad?”
My heart shattered.
There was no point lying anymore.
“Yes.”
She stared at me.
“He’s alive, isn’t he?”
I nodded.
Iris took a step backward.
For several seconds, neither of us spoke.
Then she laughed.
It wasn’t a happy laugh.
It was the kind of laugh people make when something is so painful that their mind doesn’t know what else to do.
“You told me he was dead.”
“I know.”
“You told me he died before I was born.”
“I know.”
“You showed me a grave.”
My eyes burned.
“I know.”
Her voice rose.
“So why are you telling me now?”
I couldn’t answer.
She turned toward Ryan.
“Did you know?”
“No.”
She looked back at me.
“How long?”
I whispered, “All your life.”
Her face crumpled.
That was the moment I realized there was no explanation that could make this painless.
I had believed I was protecting her from a father who had abandoned us.
But I’d also taken away her right to make her own decision about whether she wanted to know him.
“Iris,” I whispered.
“Don’t.”
She raised her hand.
“Please don’t tell me you did it for me.”
I froze.
“Because that’s what parents always say, right?”
Tears rolled down her cheeks.
“You decided I couldn’t handle the truth, so you made the decision for me.”
“I was scared.”
“Of what?”
“Losing you.”
She stared at me.
“You already lost me.”
Those words nearly destroyed me.
Ryan stepped forward.
“Iris—”
She shook her head.
