family we’re joining.”
I swallowed hard.
“You could have told me.”
“Yes,” she said. “I could have.”
There was no defensiveness in her voice.
“I should have told you. I was afraid that if I explained it before I had the whole story, it would become another family argument. And I was afraid you would say we should leave the past alone.”
I couldn’t deny that possibility.
I had spent most of my life accepting my family’s silences as facts. If my mother said there was no reason to discuss
