Tubes everywhere. Machines beeping. His head wrapped in bandages. His face swollen and bruised. The strong, proud, successful man who’d erased me from his life, now lying helpless in a hospital bed.
I broke down. Fell to my knees beside his bed and sobbed like I haven’t sobbed since my own mother died. “Tyler. Son. I’m here. Daddy’s here.”
“He’s still breathing.”
“The machines are breathing for him. He’s gone, Mr. Mitchell. They’re keeping him alive until… until family can say goodbye.”
“Then why did you call me? I’m not family. Not according to Tyler.”
Sarah started crying. “Because I found something. In his office at home. I was looking for his will, his legal papers. And I found a box.”
She pulled out her phone. Showed me pictures. A box filled with things I’d sent Tyler over the years. Birthday cards. Photos. Letters. All the presents I’d mailed to my grandchildren. Everything he’d supposedly returned or thrown away.
“He kept everything,” she whispered. “Every single thing you ever sent. There were letters in there too. Letters he wrote but never mailed. Letters to you.”
She handed me a piece of paper. A letter Tyler had written just two weeks before the accident.
“Dear Dad,Continue reading…
