Chapter 7 - What He Wrote
She read it to herself first. The rest of us sat there.
Gary looked at his coffee. Marcus looked at the table. I looked at my hands.
It took her four minutes. I counted.
When she finished, she laid the letter flat on the table and pressed her palm down on it, like she needed to keep it from moving.
"He says he's sorry," she said. Her voice was steady but thin. "Not in a vague way. He's specific. He lists things." She paused. "He says he was controlling. He says he made you feel small. He says he knew he was doing it while he did it, and did it anyway, and that's the part he can't forgive himself for. That he knew."
She looked at me.
"He says you were the bravest person he ever met. That leaving was the right thing to do. That he's never once blamed you for keeping me from him, because he understands exactly why you did it."
I pressed my fingers against my mouth.
"He says he doesn't expect forgiveness. He says he's not writing to ask for anything." She lifted her hand off the page. "He's writing it so I'd know I was wanted. That he thought about me every single day. That he's got a box at home with every school picture Gary could dig up, and my name written on the lid."
Nobody said anything.
"He wants to meet me," she said. "If I want to. No pressure, no deadline. His number's at the bottom." She looked at Gary. "Is he well enough for visitors?"
"He's been well enough for a month," Gary said. "He just didn't know if you'd want to come."
Delia folded the letter back along its creases.
"Mom." She turned to me. "I need to ask you something, and I need an honest answer."
"Okay."
"If I meet him — if I decide I want him in my life somehow — can you handle that?"
It was the most grown-up question anyone had ever put to me.
I thought about the sixteen years. The name changes. The new city. The careful silence I'd built around us like a wall.
I thought about my daughter in her prom dress at two in the morning, laying her hand over mine.
"Yes," I said. "It'll be hard some days. But yes."
She nodded. Looked at the letter in her hands.
"I want to call him," she said. "Today. I don't want to wait."
Gary slid his phone across the table. "He's on speed dial. He's been sitting next to his phone since seven this morning."
Delia almost smiled. It was small and complicated and real.
She picked up the phone. Looked at me one more time. Checking.
I nodded.
She pressed call.
May you like
It rang twice. Then a voice — low, careful, a little rough around the edges — said, "Hello?"
And Delia shut her eyes and said, "Hi. It's me."
