Sophie stared at me. “Dad?”
“I never wrote that.” My voice came out rough. “I never saw her letter. I never wrote a word of this.”
Emma took the page from my hand. “Are you sure?”
I looked at my three daughters – the girls I had fed and bathed and sat up with through every nightmare.
“I spent twenty-one years hating your mother,” I said. “If I had done this, I would tell you. I wouldn’t hide behind it.”
Nine Years
There was another page in the box. On it, Vanessa explained that years later, in a drunken argument, Daniel had confessed. He had intercepted her letter and typed my reply himself.
For a moment, I felt the ground shift under my twenty-one years of anger. She had tried. Someone had stood between her and our door.
Then Claire read the next line, and whatever softness had begun to form in me went cold.
