My mother had me at 17 and gave me up. At 20, I found her — heart pounding with hope — but she looked terrified.

“Forget me,” she whispered. “My husband can’t know. He’d leave.”

Her words crushed me. I walked away, shattered.

A year passed. Then, one rainy night, a knock came.

At the door stood a man in a suit. “I’m Daniel,” he said. “Your mother’s husband. She never told me, but I found the letters.”

Inside a box were birthday letters she’d written me every year, never sent.

The first one read: “I think of you every day. I loved you enough to let you go.”

Tears blurred my eyes.

“She’s in the hospital,” Daniel said. “She wanted you to have these.”

I found her there — weak, crying, smiling.

“You came,” she whispered.

And I knew: she hadn’t stopped loving me. She’d just been afraid.