Chapter 5: What My Mother Left Behind
I didn't open it immediately.
I sat down in the chair across from Marco's desk — the client chair, the one positioned just so — and I held the envelope in both hands and looked at my name in her writing.
She had always written my E with a little curl at the bottom.
I had forgotten that.
Seeing it now felt like a small electric shock behind my sternum.
"How long have you had this?" I asked.
"She gave it to me at her last appointment," Marco said.
"Three weeks before she passed.
She said to give it to you if you ever came here.
She said — " He stopped.
"What did she say?"
He sat down.
"She said, 'My daughter is stubborn and curious and she will eventually find her way to you.
When she does, give her this.
And tell her I knew she would figure it out.'"
I pressed my lips together hard.
"She knew," I said.
"She knew we would end up together?"
"She said she hoped.
She said you needed someone who understood that people deserve to feel like themselves." He paused.
"I think she was also giving me her approval.
In her way."
I turned the envelope over.
The seal was intact.
She had licked it closed herself, six years ago, and no one had opened it since.
I slid my finger under the flap.
The letter was two pages, written on the pale blue notepaper she kept in the drawer beside her bed.
I used to steal sheets of it as a child to write notes I considered very important.
I read it slowly.
Marco sat quietly across from me and did not speak.
She wrote about the appointments.
About how strange it had felt, the first time, to sit in a chair and let someone take care of her face when her body was doing what it was doing.
About how she had cried, the second visit, and Marco had handed her a tissue and said nothing and that had been exactly right.
She wrote about watching me during those months.
How capable I was.
How much I was holding.
How she had wanted, desperately, to give me less to carry rather than more.
*You always tried to fix everything for me, my love.
I needed one thing I could fix for myself.*
Then, near the bottom of the first page:
*I don't know who you'll be with when you read this.
But I hope he's someone who keeps his promises.
I hope he's someone who understands that a secret kept out of love is different from a secret kept out of shame.
I hope you'll be able to tell the difference.*
I looked up at Marco.
He was watching me with the careful stillness of someone who has been waiting a long time for something and is afraid to move in case it goes wrong.
"She's talking about you," I said.
"I don't know that for certain."
"She is." I looked back at the letter.
"She liked you."
"She was a remarkable woman."
"She was infuriating," I said.
"She was warm and funny and she never did anything the straightforward way and she was completely infuriating."
"Yes," Marco said.
"She was."
I laughed.
It came out wet.
I hadn't realized I was crying until I heard it.
Marco stood up, came around the desk, and crouched in front of my chair.
He didn't reach for me.
He just waited.
"You should have told me," I said.
"I know."
"About the job.
About my mother.
About all of it."
"Yes."
"I understand why you didn't.
I don't like it.
But I understand it."
He nodded.
"I'm still angry," I said.
"That's fair."
"And I still need to go home and think."
"I know."
I folded the letter carefully and put it back in the envelope.
I put the envelope in my bag, next to my keys.
"Marco." I stood up.
He stood with me.
"How many other secrets are there?"
He looked at me steadily.
"None."
"If I find one more—"
"You won't."
I held his gaze for a long moment.
He didn't look away.
I walked to the door.
Then I stopped with my hand on the frame.
"She wrote something at the very end of the second page," I said.
"She said, 'Ask him about the photograph on his desk.
Ask him who she is.
That answer will tell you everything you need to know about the kind of man he is.'"
I turned around.
"So I'm asking," I said.
"Who is the woman in that photograph?"
Marco's expression shifted into something I had never seen on his face before.
Something that looked, unmistakably, like grief.
"That's my sister," he said.
"After her treatment.
Six months before she passed."
The room went very quiet.
"She had the same thing your mother had," he said.
"That's why I do this work."
I stood in the doorway for a long moment.
May you like
Then I walked back into the room, set my bag on the floor, and sat back down.
"Tell me about her," I said.
