Chapter 3: What My Father Wrote
I stared at the envelope for a long moment before I touched it.
My father's handwriting.
Careful, deliberate.
The way he signed checks and birthday cards and the deed to this house.
The flap was sealed with tape that had gone yellow at the edges.
"How long have you had this?" I asked.
"Since before you started school." Mom sat with her hands folded in her lap.
"He gave it to me one night after supper.
Said he needed me to hold onto it.
Said he hoped I'd never have to use it."
"And you never opened it."
"He asked me not to."
I picked it up.
It was heavier than it looked.
"Mom.
What do you already know?"
She was quiet for a moment.
The kitchen clock ticked.
Outside, the wind moved through the pecan tree in the yard.
"I know that before he met me, your father loved someone else," she said.
"Very much.
And I know that it ended badly.
And I know that he carried it with him for the rest of his life, even when he thought he'd put it down."
"Who was she?"
Mom looked at the envelope in my hands.
"Open it," she said softly.
"He'll tell you better than I can."
I worked the tape loose carefully, the way you handle something that can't be undone.
Inside were two folded sheets of lined paper, the kind from a yellow legal pad, and a photograph.
I looked at the photograph first.
A young woman, maybe twenty, standing in front of a lake I didn't recognize.
She was laughing at whoever held the camera.
Dark hair, light eyes, a sundress with small flowers on it.
She looked like someone who didn't know yet that anything could go wrong.
I knew that face.
Not from memory.
From Claire's kitchen counter, in a silver frame beside the coffee maker.
Claire's mother at a family reunion, years before Claire was born.
My hands weren't entirely steady when I unfolded the letter.
*If you're reading this, then something has happened that I always feared might.
I don't know what form it took.
I only know that I owe you the truth, and I should have found the courage to tell it long before now.*
*Her name was Diane.
We were together for almost two years, starting in the summer of 1974.
I was twenty-two.
She was nineteen.
I thought I was going to marry her.*
*In the spring of 1976, she told me she was pregnant.*
I stopped reading.
The kitchen felt very still.
"Mom."
"Keep reading," she said quietly.
*I was scared.
I'm not proud of what that fear made me do.
I told her I needed time.
I took more time than she had.
By the time I came back to her with any kind of answer, she was gone.
She'd left town.
Her family wouldn't tell me where.
I wrote letters that came back unopened.
I drove to her parents' house twice and both times her father met me at the door and told me to leave.*
*I don't know what happened to the child.
I have tried not to think about it for forty years.
I have not always succeeded.*
*If you are reading this because the question has finally found its way home — I am sorry.
I am sorry I was a coward when she needed me not to be.
Whatever came of that time is not her fault, and it is not yours.*
*I loved your mother.
I love you.
But I owe this truth to whoever needs it.*
*— Dad*
I set the letter down on the table.
Mom reached over and put her hand over mine.
Neither of us said anything for a long time.
Then I picked up my phone and called Claire.
It rang four times.
Then her voicemail.
Her voice, calm and familiar, asking me to leave a message.
"Claire," I said.
"I read the letter.
Call me back.
Please."
I set the phone on the table next to my father's handwriting and looked at my mother.
"She thinks we might be related," I said.
Mom nodded slowly.
"That's what she thinks," she said.
"But that's not the whole story.
And that's why he wrote the letter."
I looked at her.
"What's the rest of it?"
She folded her hands again.
Outside, the wind moved through the pecan tree a second time.
"There's someone else you need to talk to," she said.
"Someone who knew Diane.
Someone who knew what really happened after she left."
"Who?"
Mom stood up and walked to the window.
May you like
"Your Aunt Vera," she said.
"She's been waiting thirty years for somebody to finally ask."
