“My uncle once asked me, ‘Are you a virgin?’ when I was already 27 years old. From that moment, I started to be afraid of him. And a few days later, when he took me to a hotel outside the city, he leaned close to my ear by the pool and whispered, ‘After the pool, come up to my room…’”

He looked as if he wanted to speak, but for a few seconds, no words came out.

Then he picked up an old brown envelope from the table.

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“Your father made me promise that I wouldn’t give this to you until you turned twenty-seven.”

I just stared at him.

“My father?”

Richard nodded.

“That’s why I brought you here. Starting tomorrow, this hotel is closing for renovations. And this room means a lot to me.”

He turned over the photograph of my mother.

There was a handwritten message on the back.

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Room 214. The day everything began.

I still didn’t understand.

Richard sat down in a chair.

“Your parents met in this hotel.”

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I said nothing.

“But that’s not the whole story.”

He opened the envelope.

Inside was a letter written in my father’s handwriting.

It turned out that during the final months of his life, my father had been preparing something for me.