I never imagined her secret would be the kind that could make me question the man I married.
Or the life we had built together.
Or the truth we were raising our daughters to believe.
Yet that was exactly what happened the day I dug beneath the old apple tree in her garden.
My husband, Karl, had been raised by his grandmother Carla in the same creaky farmhouse we eventually moved into. His parents, I had always been told, di3d when he was very young. Carla became everything to him: mother, father, protector, and teacher.
When Karl spoke about his childhood, it was always with a quiet gratitude that bordered on reverence.
“She saved me,” he used to say. “Everything good in my life started with her.”
And I believed him.
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