Chapter 4 - The Letter She Never Sent
"There's one more thing," Jesse said.
I laughed, a short bitter sound. "Of course there is."
He reached into the box and pulled out a smaller envelope. My name was on the front in Diane Dawson's handwriting. I'd seen it on Christmas cards and school fundraiser forms for fifteen years.
"She wrote to me?"
"A few months before she died. She never sent it."
I opened it with shaking hands.
Nora,
I owe you the truth, even though I have no right to ask you to forgive me.
Walter and I started seeing each other before Jesse was born. Frank found out when he came across one of Walter's letters. By then I was already pregnant. Walter wanted me to leave Frank. I was too afraid — you know the kind of man Frank was behind that front door. So I stayed, and Walter said he would take care of us.
Then he changed his mind. When Jesse was born, Walter came to the hospital one time, while Frank was away. He held the baby for maybe a minute. Then he said Jesse looked too much like him, and he couldn't risk you ever finding out.
I stopped. Jesse watched me without a word. I made myself keep going.
When you started feeding Jesse, I knew. I watched him cross the road to your porch almost every day. I should have called him back. Instead I let him go, because those hours in your kitchen were the happiest part of his childhood. You gave my son a warm meal nobody rationed. A conversation nobody turned into a punishment. A room where he could just breathe.
I hated needing you. Some days I hated you, because Walter had chosen your life instead of mine. None of that was ever your fault.
Walter couldn't stand Jesse coming over because he was terrified you'd see his own face looking back at you. Frank couldn't stand it because he was sure Jesse loved you more than him. Both of them made that boy pay for finding a little peace in your house. I didn't protect him. I'll go to my grave knowing that.
If Jesse ever puts this letter in your hands, I need you to know three things. He loved you. He never took a single thing from you. And every time he came home from your house smiling, I knew you'd handed him one more good memory than I had it in me to give.
Diane
I lowered the page. For a long time I couldn't see anything at all. I cried until my chest ached, and Jesse sat next to me and didn't touch me and didn't say a word. He just waited.
"You should have had better parents," I finally said.
"I had you."
That broke me completely. I reached for him, and he leaned in, and I wrapped my arms around a grown man in an expensive suit with gray coming in at one temple. For one moment he was eight years old again. Cold. Hungry. Trying so hard not to ask for too much.
"I'm sorry," I said. "I should have seen it. I should have protected you."
"You gave me somewhere to go," he said into my shoulder. "That was enough. It was to me."
He pulled back and wiped his face with the heel of his hand. "When I was a kid," he said, "I used to call you Mom. In my head."
I went still.
He looked mortified. "Forget I said that."
"Say it again."
May you like
His eyes filled. "I used to call you Mom in my head."
For twenty years I had grieved a son I thought had betrayed me. And the whole time, he'd been carrying me around as a mother in his head.
