“I know.”
For a moment, I felt angry with Mary.
Not for choosing our daughters, but for hiding that pain when I’d been beside her.
Then I remembered her tears.
Perhaps she’d tried to explain, and I’d been too busy reassuring her to listen.
Her mother slid the envelope toward me.
“She wrote this for me. She said I could show you if anything ever happened to her. I couldn’t bring myself to do it until now.”
“What was she afraid of?”
She pushed it closer.
“Read it.”
I unfolded the paper.
Mary’s familiar handwriting filled the page, including the tiny hearts she sometimes drew above letters.
I touched it gently before reading.
“Mom,”
“I know you loved me.”
“I know that now.”
“But when I was little, I thought you would have traded every day with me to have Dad back.”
“I know you never meant that.”
