“No,” she said finally. “I don't want to know.”
Michael stared at her. “You don't?”
“I know enough. I know he lied to me for years. I know he had affairs. I know he wasn't the man I thought I married.” She set the bundle of letters on the desk. “Knowing more won't change any of that. It will just give me more to carry, and I'm done carrying his secrets.”
“So what do we do with them?”
Maggie looked at the letters, at the desk, at the room full of artifacts from a life that had been built on deception. She thought about Emily, Daniel's daughter from one of those affairs, now part of their family in ways no one could have predicted. She thought about the grandchildren who would grow up hearing stories about a grandfather they had never met. She thought about the complicated legacy that Daniel had left behind, not just the lies, but also the children he had raised, the family he had helped create, the moments of genuine love that had existed alongside the betrayal.
“We take what matters and we leave the rest,” she said. “The books can go to donation. The furniture too, if no one wants it. The papers...” She paused, looking at the bundle of letters. “The papers we burn. All of them. The letters, the files, whatever else is in these drawers. We don't need to know what's in them. We don't need to preserve them for anyone.”
“Are you sure?”
“I'm sure.” She picked up the letters and handed them back to Michael. “He was your father. He was a flawed man who made terrible choices. But he was also the reason you exist, the reason your brother and sisters exist. We can acknowledge that without honoring his mistakes. We can let him go without letting him define us.”
Michael held the letters, his face a battleground of emotions, grief and anger and something that might have been relief. Then, slowly, he nodded.
“Okay. We burn them.”
“We burn them.”
The door creaked, and they both turned to see Grandma Sarah standing in the hallway, her expression unreadable.
“I couldn't help overhearing,” she said. “These old houses have thin walls.”
“How much did you hear?” Maggie asked.
“Enough.” Grandma Sarah stepped into the room, her eyes moving across the desk, the shelves, the evidence of a life she had witnessed from the outside. She had never liked Daniel, Maggie knew. She had kept her opinions to herself while he was alive, but after the truth came out, she had made it clear that she considered him unworthy of her daughter.
“He was a disappointment,” Grandma Sarah said matter-of-factly. “I knew it from the beginning, but you loved him, so I kept my mouth shut. Maybe I shouldn't have.”
“It wouldn't have changed anything.”
“Probably not. Love makes us stupid.” She moved to the desk and picked up a fountain pen from its holder, examining it with cool appraisal. “This is nice. Worth keeping.”
“You want Dad's pen?” Michael asked, incredulous.
“I want a nice pen. The fact that it belonged to your father is incidental.” She slipped it into her pocket. “Now, are we burning those letters or not? Because I happen to know there's a fire pit in the backyard, and I haven't had a good bonfire in years.”
Despite everything, the weight of the conversation, the heaviness of the room, the ghosts that seemed to press in from every corner, Maggie laughed.
“A bonfire it is,” she said.
They gathered the papers from the desk, the letters, the files, the documents that no one needed to see. Christopher appeared in the doorway, drawn by the commotion, and listened as Maggie explained what they were doing. He nodded once, his face serious, and disappeared to get matches.
Lauren and Sarah joined them, followed by Becca with Eloise on her hip. Christopher called Beth to explain what they were doing and captured the event on his phone so she and Emily could watch from the farmhouse. They all filed out the back door and gathered around the old fire pit that had sat unused for years.
Christopher arranged the papers in the pit, crumpling some to help them catch. He struck a match and held it to the edge of a letter, watching as the flame took hold.
The fire grew slowly at first, then faster, consuming the secrets that Daniel had kept so carefully hidden. Maggie watched the papers curl and blacken, watched the words dissolve into ash, watched years of lies transform into smoke that rose toward the gray sky and disappeared.
No one spoke.
When the fire died down, leaving nothing but embers and fragments, Grandma Sarah broke the silence.
“Well,” she said. “That's done.”
“That's done,” Maggie agreed.
