“I discovered the letter was fake nine years ago.”
Sophie stood up so fast her chair scraped the tile.
“Nine years?“
Claire’s hands were trembling, but she kept reading.
“By then you were twelve. I had already missed first words, first steps, first days of school, scraped knees, Christmas mornings, and twelve birthdays. I told myself coming back would only hurt you. That was partly true.”
Her voice broke.
“Mostly, I was a coward.”
Emma lowered her eyes.
There was one final sentence at the bottom of the page.
“By then, I wasn’t afraid your father would turn me away. I was afraid you would.”
For a long time, nobody said anything. The hum of the bank’s air vents filled the little room.
Then Sophie took the letter out of Claire’s hands and read it again herself.
“So she knew,” she said flatly. “Nine years ago, she found out Dad never told her to stay away.”
