Chapter 8
The first letter arrived in March.
I was in my home office, going over the foundation’s quarterly reports, when the mail carrier dropped off a large manila envelope. No return address. Just my name and address typed neatly in the center.
I opened it.
A single sheet of paper inside.
Handwritten.
I recognized the handwriting immediately.
Celeste’s.
Perfect. Looping. Cold.
*Everett,*
*I know you hate me. You have every reason to. But I am your mother. And there are things you need to know. Things about your father. About the family. About why I did what I did. I’m dying, Everett. The doctors say I have six months, maybe less. I need to see you. Before it’s too late. Please. Just one hour. That’s all I ask.*
*Mother.*
I read it twice.
Then I crumpled it up.
Threw it in the trash.
I didn’t tell Maren.
I didn’t tell anyone.
But I couldn’t stop thinking about it.
Dying.
Six months.
I sat at my desk for a long time, staring at the crumpled paper in the wastebasket.
A week later, another letter came.
Then another.
Every Tuesday, like clockwork.
Some were long. Pages and pages of memories—my first steps, my first day of school, the time I’d fallen off my bike and she’d carried me home for ten blocks in the rain.
Some were short.
Just a sentence or two.
*I’m sorry.*
*I miss you.*
*Please.*
By the fourth letter, I couldn’t take it anymore.
I called Daniel.
“Is it true?” I asked him, without saying hello. “Is she really dying?”
Daniel sighed.
“I was going to tell you if she sent anything. Yeah. It’s true. Lung cancer. Advanced. They moved her to the prison hospital last month. Six months is optimistic, according to the report I got. More like two or three.”
He paused.
“What do you want to do?”
I thought about it.
All night.
All the next day.
I thought about the woman in the letters. The mother who’d carried me home in the rain. Who’d stayed up with me for three straight days when I had meningitis at seven. Who’d held me when my father died and told me we’d get through it together.
And I thought about the woman on the video.
Locking my wife in a room.
Leaving my son to freeze.
Forging my name.
They were the same person.
Both of them.
And I would never understand how one human being could hold both so much love and so much evil inside them at the same time.
That evening, I sat Maren down at the kitchen table.
Showed her the letters.
Told her everything.
When I finished, she was quiet for a long time.
Then she reached across the table and took my hand.
“What do you want to do?” she asked.
“I don’t know. Part of me never wants to see her again. Wants to let her die alone, the way she made us feel. But another part… she’s my mom, Maren. And if she really does have only a few months… what if I regret it forever if I don’t go? What if there are things I need to hear? Closure, I guess.”
She squeezed my hand.
“Then go.”
I blinked.
“Really?”
“Really. She did terrible things. Unforgivable things. And nothing she says can ever make that okay. But she’s still your mother. And you have to live with yourself for the rest of your life. If not going would haunt you… then you have to go.”
She leaned forward.
“But I’m coming with you.”
“Maren, no. You don’t have to—”
“I do. Because I’m your wife. And you don’t have to do anything alone ever again. Not even this.”
She smiled softly.
“Besides. I want to look her in the eye one last time. And tell her that she didn’t break us. That we won. And that our son is the happiest, most loved little boy in the whole world. That’s the only apology I’ll ever need.”
I looked at her.
This incredible, fierce, beautiful woman.
May you like
And I loved her more than I’d ever loved anything in my life.
“Okay,” I said. “We’ll go together.”
