Chapter 8: My Father's Words
The paper was thin.
The kind of lightweight stationery my father had kept in the left drawer of his desk for as long as I could remember — pale blue, slightly textured, the kind he used for letters he considered important.
His handwriting was familiar in a way that hit me somewhere behind the sternum.
Neat, unhurried, slightly old-fashioned.
I read it slowly.
*My dear girl,*
*If you're reading this, then some time has passed since I've been gone, and Eleanor has decided you're ready.
She has better judgment than I do about these things.
She always has.*
*I want to tell you about Daniel.
Not to make you angry — you'll have enough reason for that on your own — but because I think you deserve the truth from me, in my own words, rather than pieced together from what others tell you.*
*I gave him money.
You probably know this.
What you may not know is that I knew, somewhere underneath the hope, that I was being used.
A father doesn't want to believe that about his child.
So I believed what I wanted to believe, and I paid the price for it, and I am more sorry than I can say that Eleanor paid a portion of that price alongside me.*
*What I want you to understand is this: Daniel is not a mystery.
He is not complicated.
He finds people who love someone, and he uses that love as a lever.
He used my love for him.
He will try to use yours for Eleanor.
Do not let him.*
*You are the best thing that came from my life.
Not because you are mine by blood — you're not, and that has never mattered a single day — but because of who you chose to be when life gave you reasons to choose otherwise.
Your mother would have been proud of you.
I am proud of you.*
*Protect Eleanor.
She will not ask you to.
That is exactly why you must.*
*All my love,*
*Dad*
I sat with the letter in my hands for a long time.
My stepmom didn't speak.
She just sat across from me with her hands in her lap, and let me have the time.
When I finally looked up, my eyes were wet.
I didn't try to hide it.
"He knew," I said.
"He knew Daniel would come back."
"He suspected.
He wrote that letter after Daniel made contact the first time — before we'd worked out the arrangement.
He wanted to make sure, if anything happened to him, that you wouldn't be caught off guard."
"Why didn't you give it to me sooner?"
She looked at me steadily.
"Because sooner, you would have gone looking for Daniel yourself.
You would have confronted him before you understood what you were dealing with." She paused.
"Your father knew that too.
That's why he left the timing to me."
I folded the letter carefully.
Held it for a moment.
Then I put it in my bag, close to me, where it would stay.
"Okay," I said.
"Okay?"
"I'm not going to fall apart." I wiped my face with the back of my hand.
"I'm going to do what he asked."
She nodded once.
Slowly.
"I know," she said.
"I've known for a while that you would."
I reached across the small table and took her hand.
She let me.
Her fingers were cool and dry and familiar — the hand that had smoothed my hair when I was sick, that had passed me a tissue at my father's graveside, that had held thirty envelopes addressed to a man she despised because she believed it was the only way to keep me safe.
"No more payments," I said.
"No more silence.
We do this together."
"And Daniel?"
"I'm going to make some calls in the morning." I squeezed her hand once.
"Starting with Carol."
She looked at me for a long moment.
Something in her face — some tension that had been sitting there so long it had started to look like a feature — quietly let go.
"Your father was right," she said softly.
"About all of it."
Outside the window, the courtyard was dark.
The bird feeder swayed slightly in the evening wind.
May you like
Somewhere down the hall, a night nurse made her rounds, footsteps soft and regular as a clock.
I didn't leave until she was asleep.
