Chapter 5: Everything Carol Left Behind
I called my oldest son from the hospital parking lot.
"Mom?
It's barely eight in the morning."
"I need you to go to the storage unit," I said.
"The one with Carol's things.
I need you to look for anything with the name Lily on it.
Letters, photographs, a journal — anything."
A pause.
"Aunt Carol's storage unit?"
"Yes."
"Mom, what's going on?"
"I'll explain everything tonight.
Just go.
Please."
He went.
I sat in the car for a few minutes before going back inside.
The morning was gray and cold and the parking lot was nearly empty.
I thought about Carol at seventeen, alone in Portland, making a decision that would shape three lives without any of us knowing.
I had been angry at her for things far smaller than this.
I didn't know yet what I felt about this.
Lily was dressed when I returned to her room.
Jeans, a gray sweater, a bag packed by the door.
She looked up with the careful expression of someone who has learned not to expect too much.
"You're still leaving?" I asked.
"I don't want to make this harder for you."
"Sit down, Lily."
She sat.
I pulled the chair close and sat across from her.
No desk between us.
No folder.
Just the two of us and the morning light coming through the blinds.
"Grace needs to stay here for at least two more days," I said.
"She's healthy, but the nurses want to monitor her weight.
I'd like you to stay too."
Lily looked at her hands.
"I can't afford —"
"That's not a concern.
David will handle it."
"Mrs.
Carter —"
"Susan."
She stopped.
"You came looking for your mother," I said.
"I understand that.
I understand why you needed to find her.
And I'm sorry — I am genuinely sorry — that the answer is what it is." I paused.
"Carol was difficult.
She was stubborn and she kept too many secrets and she could be unkind in ways she never fully understood.
But she also loved fiercely.
And I think she loved you.
I think she found you somehow and she loved you from a distance because she didn't know how to do it any other way."
Lily's jaw tightened.
She was fighting something.
"She never contacted me," she said.
"Not once."
"I know.
That's not an excuse.
It's just the truth about who she was."
A tear slid down Lily's cheek.
She wiped it away quickly, like she was embarrassed by it.
"I just wanted to know where I came from," she said.
"I just wanted to know if anyone ever thought about me."
"She thought about you." I reached into my coat pocket and set something on the bed between us.
A photograph.
The one from the envelope, the one with the handwriting on the back.
"She kept this.
She gave it to your adoptive mother to give to you.
That's not nothing, Lily."
Lily picked up the photograph.
She looked at it for a long time.
"She looks like me," she said softly.
"She does."
"And she looks like you."
"We were sisters.
We shared a face more than we ever admitted."
Lily set the photograph down carefully.
When she looked up, something in her expression had shifted.
Not resolved.
Not healed.
But open, in a way it hadn't been before.
"What happens now?" she asked.
"My son is going through Carol's things this morning.
If there are letters, you should have them.
If there are photographs, you should have those too." I folded my hands in my lap.
"And Grace is going to need people who love her.
She came into the world in a complicated way.
That doesn't have to define what comes next."
Lily looked at the bassinet in the corner of the room, where Grace was sleeping with her small fists curled under her chin.
"She really does have your eyes," Lily said.
"She has Carol's eyes," I said.
"Same as you.
Same as me."
The door opened behind me.
David leaned in.
"Tom's at the storage unit," he said.
"He found a box."
I stood.
"What kind of box?"
David's expression was careful in the way it gets when he doesn't want to deliver news standing up.
"Letters," he said.
"Tied with a ribbon.
Addressed to Lily.
Dated every year from 1990 to 2018."
May you like
Twenty-eight years of letters.
Never sent.
