My stepmother sl:ammed the door in my face after telling me, “Your father was bu:ried without you.” I didn’t scream, I didn’t beg; I walked straight to the cemetery with my prison clothes still in my backpack. But there I discovered there was no grave… only a secret letter that could destroy it.

My dad wrote the letter in his usual messy, blocky handwriting. Reading it felt like he was talking directly to me from the grave.

Son, I am so sorry I never came to visit you, the letter said. It wasn’t because I thought you were guilty. It was because by the time I finally realized what they did to you, I was already very sick and they were watching my every move.

I stopped reading for a second because the word “watching” made it hard to breathe.

Reagan didn’t want me talking to you, and Carter kept me isolated, the text continued. For months, they made me believe you stole money from our construction company. They showed me documents, but everything was fake.

I felt a massive wave of anger and hurt. My dad had actually believed I did it at first. I kept reading.

I eventually found duplicate invoices, weird bank transfers, and papers signed on days when I was totally knocked out from chemotherapy. I found bank accounts in Carter’s name, and I found your work password written down in Reagan’s notebook.