Our children were shocked when we finally told them the truth in 2006. Michael, who had become a firefighter, hugged his father and cried. Claire, our daughter who lived in California, flew home immediately and spent two weeks with us.
The neighborhood slowly learned pieces of the story. People who had once called Richard “quiet” now called him a hero in a different way.
—
**Love in the Final Chapter**
Richard passed away in the spring of 2018, at the age of seventy-four. His heart, weakened by decades of chronic pain and stress, finally gave out.
In his final weeks, he was too weak to do the full morning routine himself. I took over completely. Every morning at 4 a.m., I would help him to the bathroom, gently clean and moisturize his scarred back, and whisper the same words he had said for thirty-five years:
“I’m doing this to protect you.”
On the last morning he was conscious, he looked at me with those same steady eyes I fell in love with in 1969.
