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Her words paralyzed me. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think. As soon as I’d seen those pills on her shelf, I’d suspected this was something bad. But it was one thing to speculate and another to have it confirmed.

Mom’s grasp on my hands tightened as she gave a reassuring squeeze. My body didn’t feel like my own right now though, and I could barely register the sensation.

“You have cancer?” I needed to hear it again. I felt like I was under water and her words were brushing over the surface. I wasn’t sure I’d understood her correctly. This didn’t feel real. How could it be true?

“I do, but it’s not the most serious kind of cancer,” she explained. “And we caught it early. My chances of a full recovery are high, and the treatment I’m on isn’t invasive. I’m going to live a long, healthy life, I promise.”

Tears pricked my eyes. Even if this cancer was less serious, it was still cancer, and despite what Mom said, that word felt like a death sentence. Perhaps she’d survive it now, but what about in the future? What if it came back? I was jumping ahead of myself though. I needed to focus on how she would get through it now.

“What treatment are you on?” I asked. “What exactly are your survival chances? Who’s your doctor? Can I talk to them?”

My mom gave me a soft smile. “I know you have a lot of questions,” she said. “And we can make an appointment to chat with my doctor if that will make you feel better.”

“It would,” I said, but it only felt slightly true. It didn’t change the fact I felt terrible she’d been dealing with this all on her own. She’d seemed tired for months now, but I’d assumed she’d been overworking herself. Had I gotten so caught up in my new life I’d failed to notice she was struggling for another reason? How could I have missed this?

She seemed to have a positive outlook, but I couldn’t imagine coping with something like this without the support of my family. How she’d handled the mental and physical load without me.

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Because you’d just broken up with Levi at the time, and you were devastated. I couldn’t dump this on you too.”

"I could have handled it.”

But she shook her head. “And then you were due to head off to Weybridge Academy, and I knew you would never go if you knew the truth.”

“You’re right. I wouldn’t have,” I agreed. “Because this is the kind of thing you deal with as a family. Because you deserved to have some support, and I deserved to know. You should have told me.”

She shrugged. “Like I said, I’m fine. I feel good, and we’re monitoring it closely. Your father has been working with my doctor to make sure his treatment is working for me, and if things keep tracking the way they are, I might never need surgery.”

“Matthew knows?”

She grimaced.

“You could tell my estranged father but not your daughter?” It was hard to ignore the hurt that flashed through me. My mom trusted Matthew with this over me. And Matthew had kept it from me too. It’s not like they hadn’t had the opportunity to tell me.

My mom glanced away as she gathered her thoughts, and the way she refused to look at me made me anxious. I thought we shared everything, but could she really be keeping another secret?

“Mom, is there something you’re not telling me?”

She swallowed and slowly returned her gaze to meet mine. “So, here’s the thing…” She glanced down at her hands, and I could see she was struggling with whatever it was she had to say. She released a breath and looked at me once more. “Matthew never found my letter in his father’s safe.”

Her response surprised me, and it took me a moment to realize she was talking about the letter she had sent Matthew before I was born. The one in which she’d told him about me. The only reason he knew I existed was because he’d discovered the letter after his father died.

“I don’t understand,” I said. “What’s that got to do with your diagnosis?”

“Because that letter isn’t the reason your father came back into your life,” she said. “He never saw it. Matthew suspects his parents destroyed it before they sent me the hush money. The truth is, Matthew didn’t know you existed until I reached out to him earlier this year.”

“Wait?Youreached out tohim?”

She nodded. “I’d just received my diagnosis, and I was terrified. So, I decided to get in touch with him.”

“Of course, you were terrified. Mom, you should have said something to me.”

She shook her head though. “I wasn’t terrified for me. I was terrified for you. Hearing about the cancer made me realize that I’m not always going to be here. That something might happen to me, and you would be left all alone. I didn’t want to be the only family you had, so I contacted Matthew. I told him about you. And I told him I was sick.”

She quickly lifted a hand to her eye to stop a tear from escaping before she continued. “I hoped that maybe he’d changed his mind in the years since you were born and that maybe he would want to be in your life. To my shock, I discovered that he’d never even known about you. But from the very first moment he found out he had a daughter, he wanted to be a father to you.”

The blood rushed from my skin as I tried to understand what she was saying. They had both lied to me about this?