and only one night learning how to choose me.
I thought that was the end of the secret.
I thought my father-in-law had only wanted to bring his late wife’s memory into our marriage.
But the next morning, when I walked into the kitchen and saw what was waiting on the table beside Lily’s old photo…
I realized there was another reason he had come into our room that night.
A reason nobody had told me.
And it had nothing to do with tradition.
“She named her Lily.”
I looked at the kitten.
The tiny animal curled into my husband’s arms, completely unaware of the tension in the room.
“When my wife was sick, she asked me for one thing,” he said. “She asked me to make sure our family never forgot kindness.”
I listened carefully.
But I was still angry.
“So why the lie?”
My father-in-law looked ashamed.
