“What is this?”
“A copy of the letter I buried for you.”
I didn’t touch it.
“You said it was private.”
“It was.”
“What is this?”
“Do you want me to read it?”
Mom sat across from me.
“I think I do.”
So I opened it.
She wrote about how much she’d needed me after Dad died and how that need had slowly changed.
“You really thought I was scared every time you did something alone?”
“Do you want me to read it?”
“Not every time. You’d ask where I was going, when I’d be back, whether I wanted you to come.”
“I thought I was helping.”
“You were. Until I started feeling like every decision needed approval.”
I looked back at the page.
She’d written about wanting coffee somewhere nobody knew her as David’s wife, about choosing furniture because she liked it, and about inviting me into her next home instead of watching me let myself in.
