Preface

cover letter

My Dearest Children,

I have buried my past in fear and shame. Shame of what I have done. Fear of what I was and that I might still be. The truth has been locked away, where though it speaks it may not be heard.

Buried it was and buried I would have preferred it to stay. I am not proud of much of the tale contained. A tale told but once, in part, to deter the woman I love from marrying me. It was that very woman who convinced me that you deserved to know where not only mine but your own stories began.

In what follows is a complete account, or as complete a one as memory can serve. Freed may it serve as a confession as well as the story of origin that it is. You deserve to have the truth, in its entirety, laid bare to you and so it shall be.

Your Father