Picking mushrooms to survive on my small Social Security check, I fell into an underground hideout… What I saw inside made my hair stand on end…

Then he had Elizabeth, a son was born, the perfect family that Arthur himself could only dream of. I didn’t want to, he whispered, staring at one point. I just envied.

When he gave me the money, something clicked in my head. I thought, why does he get everything, and I nothing? It was a moment of weakness, eclipse. Then it was too late to back out.

I got tangled in lies, in threats. He told how he framed the theft accusation, how he threatened Robert, how he forced him to disappear. Told how a few years later, tormented by conscience, he really transferred the apartment to Elizabeth, staging it as state aid to the widow of a missing labor hero.

I thought that way I’d atone for the guilt, he said. Thought if they got the home, everything would be fine. But it didn’t help.

This sin lay on me like a stone all my life. My wife, Lisa’s mother, she knew everything. This secret destroyed our family.

We lived in that apartment, but there was never happiness in it. Every corner reminded me of Robert. I sold it at the first opportunity, after my wife died.

I fled. But I couldn’t escape myself. Lisa listened to her father’s confession, and her face became stone-like.

She had lived her whole life with a loving but eternally sad and sick father, not understanding the reasons for his melancholy. And now this terrible truth crashed down on her. «So that’s why you never spoke about the past,» she whispered.

«That’s why you flinched at every doorbell.» Arthur was silent. Tears flowed down his face again.

Finally, he looked at me. «What do you want?» he asked. «Money.

I have a little left. After selling that apartment, I gave almost everything for my wife’s treatment, then for this house. But there’s some.

Take it all. I don’t need anything anymore. I just want… want to go in peace.»

I shook my head. «I don’t need your money, Arthur. I didn’t come for that.

I came for the truth, for an honest name for my husband’s father, so my son Michael, Robert’s grandson, knows his grandfather wasn’t just missing, but a hero who sacrificed himself for the family.» At that moment, Lisa stood up. She looked at her father, then at me.

There was no more fear in her eyes. There was determination. «No,» she said firmly.

«You’ll take the money. Not for yourself. For your son.

Dad.» She turned to Arthur. «You must do this.

It won’t fully atone for your guilt. But it’ll be the first step. We can’t give Robert back his life.

But we can help his grandson. It’s our duty.» Arthur looked at his daughter with surprise and gratitude.

He saw not condemnation, but support. He nodded slowly. «Yes,» he said…