Chapter 4: What the Letter Said
The document was two pages.
The letter was one.
I read the letter first.
The handwriting was careful, deliberate — the handwriting of someone who had written and rewritten every word before committing it to the page.
The date at the top was twenty-three years ago.
I would have been four years old.
*If you are reading this, then Richard has kept his promise and told you the truth.
I hope he has.
I hope he was braver than I was.*
*My name is Diane.
I was your father's younger sister.
I was twenty-two when you were born, and I was alone, and I was not well enough to be the mother you deserved.
I made the hardest choice I have ever made.
I gave you to Richard because I trusted him.
Because he loved you before you were even born.
Because I knew that whatever else happened, you would be safe.*
*I need you to know that I did not give you away because I did not want you.
I gave you away because I wanted everything for you — everything I could not give you myself.*
*I have thought about you every single day.*
I set the letter down on the island.
Father was watching me.
He hadn't moved.
"Diane," I said.
"Your sister."
"Yes."
"She's my—"
"Your biological mother.
Yes."
I pressed my fingers over my mouth.
Not to stop crying.
I wasn't crying yet.
I just needed a moment where nothing else could get in.
"Is she alive?" I asked.
"Yes."
Something cracked open in my chest.
"Does she know where I am?"
"She has always known where you are." His voice caught slightly.
"I've sent her photographs.
Every year.
Your school reports.
Your graduation announcement." He paused.
"She cried when she saw your grades."
---
Chloe pushed away from the window.
"This is unbelievable." Her voice had recovered some of its old edge.
"So Maya gets a whole secret dramatic origin story and I'm just supposed to stand here?"
"Chloe—" Mother started.
"No." Chloe turned on her.
"You told me.
You told me she wasn't really Dad's.
You said that was why she always got more — because Dad felt guilty.
You used that for years.
You used it on me."
Mother's face changed.
"You told me to treat her like she was less," Chloe said, her voice rising.
"You told me she was less."
The silence that followed was a different kind of silence than before.
I looked at Mother.
"You told her I wasn't Dad's."
Mother said nothing.
"You told a child," I said slowly, "to treat her sister as less.
And then you watched.
For years."
"I was protecting Chloe's interests—"
"You were poisoning her." Father's voice was flat.
Final.
"You were building her into exactly what she became."
Chloe sat down hard on a stool.
The fight went out of her all at once, like something had been cut.
She put her face in her hands.
I didn't feel triumph.
I felt something much heavier.
---
I picked the letter back up and read the last line again.
*I have thought about you every single day.*
"Dad," I said quietly.
"I want to meet her."
He nodded.
Like he'd been waiting twenty-three years for that exact sentence.
"I know," he said.
"She wants that too." He reached into his jacket again and set a second, smaller envelope on the island.
"She wrote you another letter.
Last month.
I was waiting for the right time."
I reached for it.
Mother's hand came out — not grabbing, just a gesture, as if she might stop me.
Father looked at her hand.
She pulled it back.
I held the second envelope.
I didn't open it yet.
"Why last month?" I asked.
Father's expression shifted.
Something careful moved behind his eyes.
May you like
"Because Diane is ill," he said quietly.
"And she didn't want to run out of time."
