Kate, so far completely absorbed in Martha's story, finally turns for the first, good look at her husband. Castle's face is unreadable, a feat for him. The paper, yellowed with age, crinkles as he gingerly pulls it open with trembling hands. Kate is turned into him, with an arm across the back of the sofa, her hand toying with the hair at his neckline. She slides her free hand over to support his, cradling the letter with him. Kate can't help a brief glance at Martha. The look of gratitude on Martha's face all but takes her daughter-in-law's breath away. Like Martha, Kate starts to tear up, and she has to purposefully redirect her attention to the short letter.

Marty,

I didn't know, honestly had no idea. I've already missed so much. I cannot apologize enough to make up for what you have carried alone. Four years? If our lives were only different.

The car is paid in full. I know it's not nearly enough.

From what I can tell, you're a wonderful mother, and he's an equally wonderful boy. I watched you both in the park last Saturday. I'm sad beyond words; proud beyond measure.

I'll keep up, keep tabs, keep praying the best for you both. I'm in so deep now, it will be safer this way. Forgive me, please.

C.

Kate reads it over her husband's shoulder, and reads it again, tears streaming. Rick is very still – even the shaking in his hands has stopped. A shred of panic laces up in her, but then-

"Is...is there more? I mean, he says he contacted you. Did you hear from my father after this?"

"Yes, Richard. Somehow, he always knew where we were, and what we were doing. Oddly, it was never...unnerving. It's just...it was a little like having a guardian angel. We'd have a tight month, and I'd find an envelope with cash in the mail. When the car broke down once and I got a call from a shop in town telling me they were coming to pick it up. He paid a lot of your private school tuition. He bought the little Toyota you drove to college. I did Shakespeare in the park in '87 and during the curtain call, I looked up and he was in the fifth row. I stopped for coffee one day in March of 1989 at a little diner in Brooklyn, and I looked up from the sugar shaker to find him sliding into the seat across from me. The afternoon you and Kate were married, I took a walk down the beach after the reception and Charles was just sitting there in the sand, at that little public beach down the road from the house.

"He was nowhere and everywhere all at once. I don't think I had direct contact with him more than a dozen times over the years, but when he finally made an appearance, he knew every grade you made in school, what girl you were dating and when you got your heart broken. It was surreal, like I'd mothered a child with James Bond. I received the most obscure post cards, usually with nothing written on them. After a while I realized after a while they were all tied to some world event. Grenada. Manuel Noriega's capture. When the Berlin wall fell. When Saddam Hussein's sons were killed in Iraq. Your father was somehow tied into all these things, and it was like he wanted me to know that if he was missing from our lives, at least it was for something important."

Martha runs out of steam and speaks her next words with her elbows on her knees, face buried in her hands. "Charles did not think it safe to have regular contact with us, and I was in no position to argue. I know how much you've wondered, how much you've missed. I always... h-hoped..."

Her voice fails her, and she chokes on a sound Richard has never heard from his mother, a sob of honest, unchecked anguish. Castle is on his knees in an instant, wrapping Martha's huddled form in an embrace.

"It's okay, Mother, it's okay...I get it, shhh, no..."

Martha clings to Richard's neck as he soothes his hands over her back. Kate has never seen Martha so out of sorts, and doubts Castle has, either.

They stay that way a long time, Martha bent forward in the chair, her son wrapped around her waist, his forehead falling to rest on her knee. They're both crying, as is Kate, who doesn't dare interrupt this moment between mother and son.

At length, they both settle and Martha pulls back to regard him, wiping tears away as she goes.

"Richard, I always hoped there would come a time when we could tell you everything, when you'd get some closure about your father, but I never imagined it would take this long. I have second-guessed this a thousand times, but Charles was so sure this was the wisest choice. I have ached for you, Richard, knowing what this has cost you, the not knowing, the not having him in your life. I'm so sorry, heaven help me in my duplicity, Richard, I'm so sorry."

Richard is shaking his head. "No, it's not a lie. Mother, it was never a lie. You withheld what you had to, but you never lied to me. I don't hold this against you, I never have. You have to believe that, please."

Martha looks unconvinced, a fresh wave of tears cascading down her cheeks. A lifetime of doubts aren't exactly just falling away. She's so accustomed to feeling bad about this, and all the while pretending like nothing's the matter. Castle rises to his knees, placing gentle hands on Martha's face, thumbing the tears away. "Mother, I had everything I needed. Do you hear me? Everything. It was enough. You were always enough for me."

Martha's eyes close, the last few tears squeezing away. A deep, trembling breath passes out of her. When she finally looks her son in the eyes again, really looks, all she sees is his certainty and his love. She cards an affectionate hand through Richard's hair, pushing it back where it flops over his forehead.

"My dear boy, I'm so proud of you. So grateful for the good man you are." She pauses, a little smile finally breaking across her face, more like the Martha they know. She regards him with a little shake of her head. "Thank you for being so good to you crazy old mom."

Richard pushes himself up by the arms of the chair and pulls Martha after him. He's chuckling as he draws her in for an embrace. "No, Mother, not crazy. Eccentric, maybe. Colorful, for sure."

"So true! What is life, after all, without a little color? Speaking of color," she says and pulls away to pluck her glass from the table, "My favorite is red. Who else wants a drink?"