Chapter 7: What He Wrote
Sophie opened the envelope with great care, the way she opened everything she considered important.
Inside was a single folded page.
She unfolded it and held it in both hands, and then looked up at Daniel.
"Will you read it to me?" she said.
"I can read, but I like being read to."
Daniel sat down on the edge of the bed beside her.
He took the page carefully.
He cleared his throat once.
Then he read.
*Dear Sophie,*
*My name is Daniel.
I am your father.
I have wanted to write this letter for a long time, and I have started it many times, and every time I stopped because I didn't know how to say what I needed to say.*
*So I'm going to say it simply.*
*I love you.
I have loved you since before you were born.
I left when you were very small, and that was wrong, and there is no good reason for it that would make sense to you now.
Maybe when you are older, I can try to explain.
But I want you to know that leaving had nothing to do with you.
You were the best thing.
You were always the best thing.*
*I heard that you love the ocean.
I love it too.
I found the shell in your necklace on a beach just like this one, and I kept it because I thought it was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.
I want you to have it now, because I think you are the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.*
*If you are reading this, then your mama was brave enough to let me come.
She is the bravest person I know.
Please always remember that.*
*I don't know how much time we have together.
But I want you to know that whatever time there is, I will be there.
I promise.*
*Love,*
*Your dad*
Sophie sat very still when he finished.
Then she reached over and took his hand.
She didn't say anything.
She just held it.
Daniel looked down at her small hand in his, and his face did the complicated thing again, and this time he didn't stop it from happening.
I looked out the window at the ocean.
I let him have that moment.
I didn't look away from the water until I was sure I could keep my face steady.
Later, after Sophie had fallen asleep between us on the bed — exhausted from the sun and the emotion and the strangeness of the day — Daniel and I sat at the small table by the window and talked in low voices.
"Why did you really leave?" I said.
"Not the version for the letter.
The real one."
He was quiet for a moment.
"I was scared," he said.
"Of being a father.
Of doing it wrong.
My own father was—" He stopped.
"It doesn't matter.
I was scared, and I ran, and by the time I understood what I'd done, I didn't know how to come back."
"You could have tried."
"I know."
"I would have let you try."
He looked at me.
"Would you have?"
I thought about it honestly.
"I don't know," I said.
"Maybe not at first.
But eventually.
For her sake."
"I told myself you wouldn't.
It was easier to believe that."
"I know," I said.
"That's what makes it hard to forgive."
He nodded.
He didn't argue with it.
"And now?" I said.
"Stage four.
What does that mean, practically?"
"It means I have months.
Not years." He said it the way people say things they have had to practice saying.
"My doctor is good.
We're managing it."
"Are you in pain?"
"Sometimes.
Not tonight."
I looked at Sophie sleeping.
Her chest rising and falling.
The necklace still around her neck.
"She's going to lose both of us," I said.
The words came out flat, because that was the only way I could say them.
"Maybe not at the same time," he said.
"That's not as comforting as you think it is."
"No," he said.
"I know."
We sat in silence for a while.
It wasn't a comfortable silence, but it wasn't a hostile one either.
It was the silence of two people who had run out of the energy required to be anything other than honest.
"I want to spend tomorrow with her," he said.
"At the ocean.
If that's all right."
I looked at my daughter's face.
May you like
"Yes," I said.
"That's all right."
