“Dear Rick, if you’re reading this, then maybe you finally know I tried to come back. I don’t expect you to forgive me.”
I turned toward Vanessa.
“What is that?”
Her voice trembled.
“A letter I wrote four months after the girls were born.”
Four months.
My anger became confusion.
“You tried to come back after four months?”
Vanessa nodded.
“Leaving the hospital was exactly what you thought it was.”
Her tears spilled freely now.
“I panicked. I was selfish. I looked at three babies and convinced myself motherhood would destroy my life.”
She swallowed.
“Marcus and I ran.”
I said nothing.
There was nothing she could say that would make that part different.
She continued.
“Four months later, Marcus left.”
Her face twisted.
“And suddenly all the excuses I’d used disappeared with him.”
She looked toward our daughters.
“I wanted to come home.”
“Then why didn’t you?”
“I wrote
