I looked at Robert.
“Then how did you find her?”
For the first time, my husband lowered his eyes.
“Sarah, there’s something else you need to know.”
He took a folded envelope from his pocket.
“Mike wrote this.”
I could barely speak.
“Mike?”
“Yes.”
Robert explained that three months earlier, while cleaning out our old storage room, he had accidentally discovered a box of Mike’s belongings.
Years ago, I had asked him to put those things away because I still couldn’t bear to look at them.
Inside the box were letters.
Dozens of letters addressed to Mike.
All of them were from Margaret.
And there was one envelope addressed to me.
I recognized Mike’s handwriting immediately.
Holding the envelope, I began to cry.
The letter had been written at the hospital, just weeks before Mike died.
He explained that he had hated his mother for many years, but he had finally begun to understand that perhaps her departure hadn’t been the betrayal he had always believed it was.
