“I’m so sorry.”
***
Inside, she didn’t waste time.
“The box is upstairs,” she said. “It has as many of his letters as I could find.”
“You really have all of them?” Leo asked quietly.
Gwen nodded. “I found them after our mother died last winter.”
She led us up to the attic. It was hot and smelled like old paper.
Then she knelt by a storage bin and lifted the lid.
“The box is upstairs.”
Letters. Stacks of them, along with birthday cards and returned envelopes, my name in Andrew’s handwriting.
My legs gave out, and I sat on the floor.
Leo dropped beside me.
Gwen handed me the first envelope with both hands, like it might tear.
“Start there,” she said.
I opened it.
Leo dropped beside me.
“Heather,
I know this looks bad. Please don’t believe I left you. I’m trying to come back. I promise.
— A.”
The air left my lungs.
“Mom?” Leo whispered.
I couldn’t answer. I grabbed another letter.
“I don’t know if you hate me. My mother says you do. I don’t believe her, but I don’t know how to reach you otherwise.”
“Oh no, no, no,” I muttered.
“I know this looks bad.”
Leo moved closer. “What is it?”
“He thought I hated him.”
Gwen let out a shaky breath. “That’s what our mother told him. She didn’t just lie, Heather. She stole eighteen years from all of you.”
I opened the third letter so fast I almost tore it.
“If it’s a boy, I hope he laughs like you do when you’re really happy.”
My hand flew to my mouth.
Leo stared at me. “He wrote that.”
“He thought I hated him.”
I nodded and passed him one of the birthday cards.
“Read it,” I said.
He opened it carefully.
Inside, the handwriting was Andrew’s.
“To my child,
I don’t know if you’ll ever see this. But if your mom tells you I loved her, believe that with your entire heart.”
Nobody spoke.
Then Leo looked at Gwen. “You knew about this?”
