The following morning, I drove him to the hospital.
I insisted.
The cast was damaged, and the nurse who answered our call had warned us not to attempt to repair it ourselves. Whatever Conor had been concealing could wait until a medical professional examined his injury.
He barely spoke during the drive.
At the hospital, a nurse took him into a treatment room while I sat outside, staring at the clock and trying to assemble the pieces of my life into something that made sense.
After forty minutes, a doctor came out and explained that Conor's ankle fracture needed to be checked again. Fortunately, there were no immediate signs of a serious complication, but the damaged cast had to be removed properly.
When Conor finally emerged in a wheelchair, his lower leg was wrapped in a temporary dressing.
The mysterious bundle was gone.
I stopped beside him.
"Where is it?"
He looked at me.
"At home."
"You brought it home from the hospital?"
"No. I mean the bundle. I took it off before we left."
My face grew hot.
"You removed something from inside your cast before going to the hospital, and you didn't think to mention it?"
"I was afraid they'd find it."
"Find what, Conor?"
He glanced toward the busy corridor.
"Not here."
I stared at him in disbelief.
"You're still doing it. Even now."
"I'll explain everything when we get home."
I wanted to scream at him.
Instead, I pushed his wheelchair toward the exit.
For the first time in thirty-two years, I wasn't sure whether I wanted to hear his explanation or whether I was afraid of what it might reveal.
When we returned home, Conor asked me to retrieve a small black box from the top drawer of his bedside table.
I found the box, but I didn't give it to him immediately.
It was heavier than it looked.
There was a tiny brass lock on the front, and the key was taped beneath the lid of the drawer.
Inside lay a stack of old photographs, several envelopes, a folded newspaper clipping, and a sealed plastic pouch.
I recognized the photographs immediately.
They showed a young Conor standing beside a man with the same dark eyes and narrow smile. In one photograph, the two of them stood in front of a modest brick house. In another, they were sitting on the hood of an old car, laughing at something outside the frame.
The resemblance was unmistakable.
His brother.
I turned over one of the photographs.
On the back, someone had written a date from nearly forty years earlier.
Beneath it were five words.
Brothers forever, no matter what.
I felt an unexpected ache in my chest.
Then I saw the newspaper clipping.
The headline described a fire at a residential property. The article was short, faded, and difficult to read, but one sentence stood out.
A man had been seriously injured while attempting to rescue another person from the burning building.
The victim's name was Michael.
I looked at Conor.
"Was this your brother?"
He nodded.
"That fire happened years ago. He survived, but he was badly injured. He spent months in the hospital."
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"Because by then, we'd already stopped speaking. I found out through someone else. I wanted to visit him, but I was too proud to make the first move."
He paused.
"By the time I finally called, he had moved away. I couldn't find him."
I set the clipping down.
"And now he's sick?"
"Yes."
"How sick?"
Conor's eyes filled with tears.
"The doctors don't think he has much time."
For the first time since the bathroom incident, I saw something that made sense.
His fear wasn't entirely about what he was hiding.
It was about the possibility of losing someone he had spent nearly his entire adult life pretending he didn't miss.
But that still didn't explain why he had hidden a bundle inside a cast.
I picked up the sealed plastic pouch.
"What is this?"
Conor sat very still.
"That is the reason I didn't want you touching my leg."
Inside the pouch was a folded letter and a small brass key.
The letter was addressed to Conor in unfamiliar handwriting.
I opened it carefully.
Conor,
If you are reading this, it means I have finally found the courage to tell you what I should have said forty years ago.
I was wrong about the money. I found the old records last year, and I now understand what happened. You never took anything from me. I accused you because I was angry, frightened, and unwilling to admit that I had made a terrible mistake.
I have carried that shame for most of my life.
There is something else you need to know. Father left something for both of us, something neither of us understood when we were young. I have kept it safe for years. I want you to have it before I die.
The key opens the small metal box in the attic of the old house.
Please come. Not for the money. Not for the house. Just come because I am tired of living with the thought that my brother might die believing I never loved him.
Michael.
I read the letter twice.
Then I looked at Conor.
"Why was this inside your cast?"
He took a long breath.
"Because I didn't know who else to trust."
I stared at him.
"You could have trusted me."
"I know."
"No, I don't think you do."
He looked down at his hands.
"I was afraid you'd tell me I was being foolish. I was afraid you'd ask why I was suddenly interested in a brother I hadn't spoken to in forty years. I was afraid you'd think I was chasing an inheritance."
"And instead, you decided to hide a letter inside a broken ankle?"
"I didn't plan the accident."
"What accident?"
He closed his eyes.
Then he told me the truth.
Conor had not slipped on a wet floor at work.
Three weeks earlier, he had received a message from Michael containing an address and a request to meet.
Conor had driven out of town alone.
He found his brother living in a small house on the edge of a quiet village. Michael looked older than his years, thinner than the photographs suggested, but the moment Conor stepped through the doorway, he smiled.
For a few seconds, neither man knew what to say.
Then Michael had embraced him.
They spent the afternoon talking about their childhood, their parents, and the years they had wasted being angry with one another.
Michael admitted that he had found the financial records proving Conor had never taken his money. Conor admitted that he had kept a letter from their father for years without telling Michael, believing it would only reopen old wounds.
Neither brother had been entirely innocent.