Chapter 3: Her Handwriting on the Envelope
The waiter's name was Daniel.
He told me that while Christina sat rigid across the table, her wine glass still in her hand, her smile completely gone.
"She used to come in every few months," Daniel said.
He was speaking only to me now, as if the rest of the table had stopped existing.
"Always sat at the same corner table.
Always ordered the soup and the bread.
Never anything expensive."
"That sounds like her," I said.
My voice came out smaller than I expected.
"The last time she came in, she wasn't well.
I could see it.
She moved slowly.
But she sat down, ordered her soup, and when I brought it over she asked me to sit with her for a minute." He paused.
"I told her I was working.
She said it wouldn't take long."
He glanced at the envelope still on the table in front of me.
"She gave me that.
She said her daughter might need it someday.
She said if anyone ever tried to take something from you that wasn't theirs to take, I should make sure you got it."
The table was completely silent.
Even Christina hadn't moved.
My husband, Paul, reached over and put his hand on mine.
I picked up the envelope.
The paper was slightly soft at the edges, like it had been handled more than once.
My name was written in my mother's careful, slanted handwriting.
The same handwriting that had signed my school permission slips.
The same handwriting on the birthday cards she'd sent every year without fail, even when I lived three states away.
I turned it over.
The seal was still intact.
"She made me promise," Daniel said quietly.
"She said don't open it for her.
Let her open it herself."
I pressed my thumb along the edge.
"Don't." Christina's voice was sharp and sudden.
"Not here.
Not in front of everyone."
I looked up at her.
Her jaw was tight.
Her eyes moved from the envelope to my face and back again.
"Whatever is in there," she said, "is a private family matter."
"You just tried to take it off the table," Paul said.
"I was curious.
That's different."
"Christina." My husband's voice was calm and flat.
"Stop talking."
She opened her mouth.
Then she looked around the table at twelve relatives who were all watching her, and she closed it again.
I opened the envelope.
Inside was a single folded sheet of paper and something smaller tucked behind it.
I unfolded the letter first.
My mother's handwriting filled the page.
Not a long letter.
She had never been a woman who used ten words when three would do.
But the lines were deliberate.
Careful.
Like she had thought about every word before she wrote it.
I read the first two lines.
My hands stopped moving.
"What does it say?" Paul asked softly.
I couldn't answer right away.
I read those two lines again, slowly, to make sure I had understood them correctly.
Then I looked up at Christina.
She was watching me with an expression I had never seen on her face before.
Not cruelty.
Not amusement.
Something closer to fear.
"She knew," I said.
"Knew what?" Paul asked.
May you like
I set the letter down on the table so my hands would stop shaking.
"She knew what Christina did."
