Chapter 5 - THE LETTER IN THE POCKETI stepped down from the altar, walking slowly back down the center aisle until I stood directly in front of my mother.
She looked smaller now. Stripped of her social standing, her lies, and her control, Elaine Mitchell looked like a terrified woman realizing the house of cards she had built over twelve years had just collapsed in thirty seconds.
"You tried to stop me at the door today because you were terrified of what people would see," I said quietly, looking down into her panicked eyes. "You were afraid they would see a daughter who survived war. But more than that, you were afraid they would see the truth about what you did to Dad."
I pulled my father’s final letter out from my breast pocket—the one he had written just days before his sudden passing.
"Dad knew what you were doing," I told her, unfolding the crisp paper. "In his final days, when your nurses left the room, he managed to smuggle this letter out through a sympathetic orderly. Do you want me to read it to the church, Mom? Or should we save it for the federal investigators already waiting outside?"
Elaine’s knees finally buckled. She dropped to the cold stone floor of the church lobby, burying her face in her hands, letting out a ragged, ugly sob that echoed off the high vaulted ceilings.
Emily rushed forward, dropping to her knees beside our mother, crying softly as she looked up at me with eyes full of shock and heartbreak. "Sarah... did he really know? Did he know I thought you hated us?"
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I knelt down beside my sister, wrapping my arm around her shoulders.
"He knew everything, Em," I whispered, handing her the letter. "He never stopped loving either of us. He just couldn't fight her alone anymore."
