Chapter 5: Letters That Never Arrived
I left the letters on the table.
I didn't trust myself to open them in front of Daniel.
I didn't trust my hands to stay steady, and I didn't want him to see whatever was on my face when I read them.
"Your mother wants to meet Nora," I said.
"That's why you're here."
"Partly."
"What's the other part?"
Daniel looked down at the papers, then back at me.
"Our mother knows what I did.
She found out six months ago — that I'd intercepted Caleb's messages, that I'd pushed him out.
She's the one who told me to come." He paused.
"She's not asking for forgiveness.
She's asking for a chance to see her granddaughter before she can't anymore."
"She's not Nora's grandmother," I said.
"Caleb is not in Nora's life.
He chose that."
"He didn't choose it freely."
"He still chose it." I looked at him steadily.
"He's a grown man.
You didn't hold a g*n to his head."
Something flickered across Daniel's face.
Not guilt exactly.
More like the discomfort of a man who has always justified his actions and is now sitting across from someone who won't accept the justification.
Grandpa picked up the letters.
"May I?" he said to me, not to Daniel.
I nodded.
He unfolded the first one slowly.
Read it without expression.
Then the second.
He read three of them before he set them down and looked at me.
"You should read these," he said quietly.
"Later."
"Now," he said.
And the way he said it — soft but certain — made me reach for them.
There were seven letters.
All in Caleb's handwriting, which I recognized from the grocery lists and the small notes he used to leave on my kitchen counter.
The handwriting was the same.
The words were not what I expected.
The first one started: *I know you probably hate me.
You should.
But I need you to know that leaving was the worst thing I've ever done and I've thought about it every single day.*
I read all seven.
I didn't look up until I finished.
"He wanted to come back," I said.
"Yes," Daniel said.
"You stopped him."
"I delayed him.
I told myself I was protecting the family.
I told myself—" He stopped.
"It doesn't matter what I told myself."
"No," I agreed.
"It doesn't."
Grandpa was watching Daniel the way he used to watch people at the hardware store who tried to return things they'd clearly broken themselves.
Patient.
Unconvinced.
"Where is Caleb now?" Grandpa asked.
"Portland.
He's been there since he left.
He works construction.
He kept the same phone number hoping she'd call." Daniel looked at me.
"He never changed it."
I thought about the number I'd deleted from my phone the night he disappeared.
The night I'd sat on my bathroom floor and told myself I was done.
"You said your mother is d*ing," I said.
"What does she want, specifically?
Not what she told you to say.
What does she actually want?"
Daniel was quiet for a moment.
"She wants to hold the baby.
Once.
She wants to tell her something." He glanced at Nora, asleep in her carrier beside my chair.
"She said she has something to give her.
Something that's been kept in the family for a long time, that should have gone to someone else years ago."
I looked at Grandpa.
He gave me the smallest nod.
Not permission.
Just acknowledgment that he was with me either way.
"I need to think," I said.
"Of course." Daniel reached into his jacket again and placed a business card on the table.
"My number.
And Caleb's, on the back.
He wrote it himself.
He asked me to give it to you."
I picked up the card.
Turned it over.
Caleb's handwriting on the back.
Seven digits and nothing else.
"One more question," I said.
"Yes."
"The woman your father called Nora.
The one Daniel — the one *you* cut out of the will." I kept my voice even.
"Who was she?"
Daniel's composure held, but only just.
"I don't know," he said.
"I think you do."
He looked at the table.
Then out the window.
Then back at me.
"I think," he said carefully, "that's a conversation you should have with your grandfather."
He stood, buttoned his jacket, and walked out without looking back.
Grandpa and I sat in the silence he left behind.
"You know who she was," I said.
He didn't deny it.
"Grandpa."
He picked up his coffee.
Set it down without drinking.
May you like
"Her name," he said slowly, "was Eleanor.
And she was your mother's older sister."
