I took a deep breath and opened it, fully expecting to just skim the pages, ready to offer a sad smile at the dramatic, angsty entries of my younger self. But as I flipped toward the middle of the book, my heart seized in my chest.

The blood completely drained from my face, leaving me lightheaded. I gasped so hard I choked on the dry, dusty air. My father wasn’t just keeping my diary. He was answering me. Every single page of my frantic, angry teenage scribbles was framed by fresh blue ink in the margins.

It was his handwriting. He had read every hateful word I had ever written about him, and he had responded. Next to an entry from my sixteenth birthday where I wrote, He didn’t even call. He doesn’t care. He loves his new life more than me, there was a note written in the margin.

I called the house fourteen times. Your mother wouldn’t let me speak to you. She said hearing my voice would trigger a panic attack. I sat in my car down the street and watched you leave with your friends just to see you smile. I am so sorry.

I flipped the page, my vision blurring with panicked tears. Next to an entry where I praised my mother for working two jobs to keep us afloat, there was another note. She isn’t working two jobs, sweetheart. She lost her job because of the pills.

The money keeping the lights on is the extra shifts I’m picking up at the warehouse. But as long as you feel safe, nothing else matters. I dropped the diary into my lap, my chest heaving. It couldn’t be true. It was a lie. He was just a bitter, lonely man trying to rewrite history to make himself feel better.

But then I looked down into the cardboard box. Underneath the diary were the manila folders. I grabbed the first one and ripped it open. Inside were endless stacks of bank statements and cancelled checks. Every single one was made out to my mother. Thousands of dollars, month after month, year after year.

There were medical records with my mother’s name on them—rehab facilities, psychiatric holds, prescription logs I had never seen or heard about. At the very bottom of the box was a sealed white envelope with my name on it. I tore it open, my hands trembling violently.

My Beautiful Girl, the letter began. If you are reading this, it means my heart finally gave out, and I am gone. I always knew you would hate me, and I made peace with that a long time ago. What I couldn’t make peace with was the idea of you losing your mother.

I never left you for another woman. There was no other woman. Your mother’s addiction had reached a point where child services were going to get involved. She was facing criminal charges for forging prescriptions.