Chapter 3 - The First Letter
Aaron did not arrange a meeting that night.
Lily hated him for that.
At least for twenty minutes.
Then Aunt Caroline arrived.
Caroline was Aaron’s older sister and one of the few adults who could speak to him without becoming intimidated by his silence.
She entered the house, saw Lily clutching the shoebox and immediately understood something had changed.
“You found them.”
Lily stared.
“You knew too?”
Caroline closed her eyes.
Aaron whispered, “Carrie.”
“No,” Lily said. “Did you?”
Caroline knelt several feet away.
“I knew your mother wrote sometimes.”
“All these?”
“I didn’t know there were this many.”
“Did you know Daddy didn’t give them to me?”
Caroline looked at Aaron.
“Yes.”
Another betrayal.
Smaller.
Still real.
Lily’s face tightened.
Caroline did not reach for her.
“I argued with him.”
“When?”
“More than once.”
“Did you tell Mommy?”
“No.”
“Why?”
Caroline answered carefully.
“Because adults sometimes convince themselves that respecting a parent’s decision is the same as doing the right thing.”
Aaron looked away.
Lily sat again and pulled out the earliest letter.
The postmark was nearly four years old.
She opened it.
Natalie’s handwriting looked less steady than in the newest letters.
“My sweet Lily,
You probably don’t remember the song I used to sing when I washed your hair. You hated water near your eyes, so I would sing too loudly until you laughed…”
Lily stopped.
She hated water near her eyes.
Victoria knew that.
Aaron knew that.
How did a woman who supposedly forgot her know?
She continued.
Natalie did not ask Lily to forgive her.
She wrote:
“I am working very hard to become someone who can safely be in your life. I wish love alone had been enough to make me well. It wasn’t.”
Lily frowned.
“Why does she say safely?”
Aaron sat on the opposite end of the room.
“Because she knew she had scared people.”
“Did she scare me?”
“You were too little to understand.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
Aaron looked at Caroline.
Caroline did not rescue him.
“No,” he said. “She never hurt you.”
“Did she try?”
“No.”
“Did she hit me?”
“No.”
“Leave me somewhere?”
“No.”
“Then why did everybody act like she was dangerous?”
Aaron took a long breath.
“Because I was afraid of what could happen if she became very sick again.”
That answer made more sense to Lily.
It also made her angrier.
“Did she get sick again?”
“Not that I know of.”
“You didn’t know?”
“I received updates through attorneys for a while.”
“For a while?”
Aaron looked increasingly uncomfortable.
Two years earlier, Natalie’s attorney had sent documentation that she had maintained sobriety, steady employment and therapy participation.
Natalie proposed monthly supervised visits.
Aaron’s attorney recommended negotiating.
Aaron refused.
Caroline stared at him.
“You never told me that.”
“I didn’t have to.”
“Yes, you did.”
Lily looked between them.
“Why did you say no?”
Aaron pressed his palms together.
“Because by then you called Victoria Mom sometimes.”
Victoria flinched.
Lily remembered.
When she was five, she had made Victoria a Mother’s Day card.
Mommy Victoria.
Everyone had cried.
Aaron had taken a photograph.
Lily had been proud.
Now she wondered whether loving Victoria had been used as evidence against loving Natalie.
“That doesn’t mean I didn’t want my other mommy.”
“I know that now.”
“You knew then.”
Aaron could not answer.
Caroline stood abruptly.
“I need air.”
She walked onto the porch.
Victoria remained near the kitchen.
She looked exhausted.
“Lily, you have school tomorrow.”
Lily stared at her.
“So?”
“You need sleep.”
“I’m reading.”
“It’s after nine.”
“Victoria.”
The use of her name instead of Mom made Victoria’s expression change.
Lily saw it.
She almost apologized automatically.
Then remembered the letters.
“I want to read.”
Victoria left the room.
Aaron stayed.
Lily opened another.
Then another.
Natalie’s letters contained no grand accusations.
That surprised Aaron most.
She wrote about ordinary things.
Learning to make banana bread.
Getting a job at a dental office.
Moving into a small apartment.
Seeing a little girl wearing rain boots like Lily once had.
In one letter, Natalie wrote that she had started keeping a savings account for Lily.
Not much money.
“Just a little at a time, so someday I can give you something that proves I planned for a future in which you might want me.”
Aaron stared at the sentence.
He had not read that letter.
Lily noticed.
“You didn’t read all of them.”
“No.”
“Why keep them?”
Aaron looked toward the shoebox.
“I couldn’t throw them away.”
“Why?”
“Because I knew they were yours.”
Lily’s brow furrowed.
“But you didn’t give them to me.”
“No.”
“Why keep something you know is mine?”
Aaron had no good answer.
Lily pulled another envelope.
This one was thicker.
Inside was a photograph.
Natalie stood outside a brick building beside an older woman.
She was thinner than Lily expected.
Brown hair.
Same gap between her front teeth as Lily.
On the back, Natalie had written:
Three years sober today. I wish you were here.
Lily touched the photograph.
“She looks like me.”
Aaron nodded.
“You look like her.”
It was the first time he had ever said that.
Lily swallowed.
“Did you love her?”
Aaron’s face tightened.
“Yes.”
“Do you still?”
Victoria had returned to the hallway without anyone noticing.
Aaron saw her.
Lily did too.
The question became dangerous.
Aaron answered carefully.
“I care about what happens to her because she is your mother.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“No,” he said quietly. “I’m not in love with Natalie anymore.”
Victoria’s shoulders loosened almost invisibly.
Lily looked back at the photograph.
“Was she in love with you?”
“I don’t know.”
A paper slipped from behind the photograph.
It was not written in Natalie’s handwriting.
It was a photocopy of a legal notice.
REQUEST FOR REUNIFICATION REVIEW.
The date was six months earlier.
Lily could read only some words.
Aaron could read all of them.
So could Caroline, who had returned from outside.
She took the page.
Her expression hardened.
“Aaron.”
“What?”
“This wasn’t just a request through lawyers.”
He stood.
Caroline held up the document.
“Natalie reopened the family-court case.”
Victoria went pale.
Lily looked at her father.
“Did you know?”
Aaron stared at the paper.
“No.”
Victoria turned away.
And Lily suddenly understood there might be another secret in the room.
May you like
One even her father had not known.
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