He thought about that.
“One slice is fine.”
After he blew out the candles, Leo reached into his pocket and removed a small yellowed envelope.
He slid it across the table toward me.
I laughed.
“Buddy, it’s your birthday. I’m supposed to give you things.”
“I know, Dad.”
Then he glanced at Johnson.
“She gave it to me yesterday. She told me not to read it. She said today was finally the right day for us to read it.”
I looked at her.
She was not smiling.
Her hands were shaking so badly that tea spilled into her saucer.
The date written across the envelope caught my attention.
It had been written 18 years earlier.
Before I unfolded it, I recognized the handwriting.
It was Goldi’s.
“What is this?” I asked.
Johnson wiped away a tear.
“Arthur, she didn’t leave because she stopped loving either of you.”
I stared at her.
“She made me promise that I wouldn’t give you that letter until Leo turned 18.”
My hands shook as I opened it and started reading aloud.
“Arthur,
“If you’re reading this, it means I never got the chance to tell you the truth myself.”
“A few days before our son was born, I was diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer. My doctors told me my chances were almost nonexistent.”
“I knew you would never leave my side.”
“I knew you would spend every last dollar, every hour, and every piece of yourself trying to save me while raising our son. ”
“I couldn’t let you lose both your wife and your son’s childhood.”
“So I made the cruelest decision of my life. I let you believe I was the villain.”
“I filed for divorce because I knew that if you thought I’d betrayed you, you would stop looking for me and put all your love into raising our son.”
“I never stopped loving either of you.”
“I simply believed this was the only way to give you both the life you deserved.”
“I left this letter with Johnson and asked her to keep it hidden until our son’s 18th birthday.’
“I wanted him to be old enough to decide for himself what kind of woman I was.”
“I don’t even know if you can ever forgive me. Maybe you shouldn’t.”
“But if there’s one thing I hope you’ll believe, it’s that leaving was never because I didn’t love our son or you.”
“I loved you both enough to let you hate me.”
“Goldi.”
By the final line, I could barely see through my tears.
Leo sat across from me, completely still.
“She’s my mother?” he whispered.
I looked at Johnson.
“How much did you know?”
“She came to me the night before she left,” she said. “She showed me a letter from her doctor. She said the cancer had already spread.”
“You knew for 18 years?”
“I knew she was sick. I did not know exactly what happened after she left.”
“She never contacted you again?”
“She even refused to tell me where she was going. She only made me promise to give you the letter and to always keep an eye on her son.”
“You watched me hate her.”
Johnson’s face crumpled.
“I watched you raise Leo, and every year I wondered whether keeping my promise was wrong.”
I was devastated that the answers to all my questions had been so near yet so far.
Johnson continued, “I stayed close because I loved Leo, but also because I felt guilty. I thought helping you was the only way I could make up for my silence.”
“What gave either of you the right to decide what I could handle?”
“Nothing,” she said. “I had no right.”
Leo finally spoke.
“So she left just after I was born? Did she even know my name?”
The question silenced us.
“Yes,” I said. “She chose it with me.”
“Did she ever hold me?”
I remembered Goldi standing over his bassinet in the darkness.
“Yes. When you were born, she did hold you.
