girls were stable.”
My stomach tightened.
“She said Vanessa coming back would destroy everything.”
Silence.
Carol had decided Vanessa was dangerous.
Maybe she believed she was protecting us.
Maybe she had watched me survive that first year and decided I couldn’t survive Vanessa returning too.
But it hadn’t been her decision.
I looked at the stack of letters.
“She decided for us.”
Tommy lowered his eyes.
“Looks that way.”
Then I turned toward Vanessa.
Because as furious as I was with Carol, I refused to let hidden letters erase twenty years of choices.
“You sent letters for three years.”
Vanessa stiffened.
“Yes.”
“What about the next seventeen?”
She looked at our daughters.
Her face crumpled.
“I thought you read them.”
“For seventeen years?”
“I thought you hated me.”
“I did.”
She flinched.
“But hatred doesn’t explain seventeen years either.”
Her shoulders shook.
“I know.”
“Why didn’t you show up?”
Vanessa
