Denise lowered her phone.
Ethan continued.
“If I cannot become the mother he needs, please be the person who stays.”
My hand went over my mouth.
I remembered the letter.
I had read it so many times the first year that the folds had nearly split apart.
But I had forgotten that sentence.
Or perhaps I had trained myself not to remember it.
At twenty-two, I had been angry at Denise for writing it.
At thirty-two, hearing Ethan read it, I heard something else.
Fear.
Shame.
And, buried under both, trust.
Ethan folded the page again.
“That is why I don’t think the first letter proves my biological mother didn’t love me,” he said. “I think it proves she knew she couldn’t take care of me then.”
Denise’s face changed.
Her shoulders dropped slightly.
I watched her stare at our son as if she were hearing her own words spoken back to her from a distance of ten years.
