Margaret struggled with conflicting emotions. Robert had loved her enough to spend fourteen years quietly supporting research into the disease that had taken her mother and sister. Yet he had also made decisions about her health without giving her the truth. If Margaret had known about the cyst twelve years earlier, she wondered, could all of this have been prevented? There was no answer that could change what had already happened.

Doctors warned that surgery would be difficult because of Margaret’s age and the extraordinary size of the tumor. Her family gathered around her as she prepared for the operation. When Margaret eventually woke, she learned that surgeons had successfully removed the entire mass. It weighed an astonishing twenty-six pounds. Even more importantly, laboratory testing showed that the tumor was benign. After months of fearing the worst, Margaret did not have ovarian cancer. Her recovery would take time, but she had been given another chance. Then Daniel discovered that Robert’s letter contained another secret—one that had nothing to do with Margaret’s medical records.