My Stepfather Raised Five Children Who Weren’t His — After the Funeral, We Each Received a Letter Never Intended for the Others to Read

Rain poured heavily during my stepfather’s funeral. Then, an hour later, his attorney handed us a locked wooden box filled with letters, and the opening sentence of mine revealed why one of my sisters had spent years avoiding the man we all called Dad.

The rain began moments before they lowered Thomas’s casket, which somehow felt fitting for him — the sort of thing he would have considered mildly annoying and quietly amusing at the same time.

That was the kind of man he was.