The resentment in the pages was thick, almost suffocating.

I felt a chill run down my spine as I read his teenage thoughts.

He didn’t just dislike his mother.

He despised her.

He had spent his entire life building a wall of perfection to escape her.

I picked up the third journal.

This one was newer, the cover barely worn.

The entries were from his college years, written in the sharp, sloping hand of a medical student.

*I saw her today at the facility,* he wrote.

*She didn’t know who I was.*

*She called me her brother.*

*It felt good to see her like that.*

*Weak.*

*Broken.*

*She cannot lock me in the dark anymore.*

*Now, I control the lights.*

I gasped softly, dropping the journal onto the desk.

The sound seemed incredibly loud in the empty room.

I stared at the open page.

The man I married, the gentle surgeon who saved lives, had a darkness in him that ran deeper than the ocean.

He hadn’t brought Eleanor to our home to care for her.

It wasn’t an act of love.

It was something else.