“My mother found out later.”
“Who wrote it?”
Sophie did not answer.
She didn’t need to.
Dad.
The thought arrived whole.
Cold.
Impossible.
Then not impossible at all.
“Did she ever come back?”
Sophie looked at me.
“Yes.”
“When?”
“1996.”
Ten years after she left.
Mara would have been twenty-six.
I had been living across town by then.
Mom was still alive.
Dad still lived in the same house.
“What happened?”
“My mother came to Bellmere.”
“Did she see Mom?”
“No.”
“Me?”
“No.”
“Dad?”
Sophie nodded.
I closed my eyes.
Of course.
Of course she did.
“What did he tell her?”
“I think you need to hear that from her.”
I opened my eyes.
“No more protecting people from their own words.”
Sophie flinched.
Then answered.
“He told her your mother had finally recovered.”
“He told her you were engaged.”
“I wasn’t.”
“He told her you had asked him never to give her your address.”
My stomach dropped.
“He said I said that?”
“Yes.”
I whispered:
“I searched for her until I was thirty.”
Sophie began crying.
“I know.”
“How?”
“My mother knows now.”
“When did she learn?”
“Six months ago.”
That surprised me.
“What happened six months ago?”
Sophie explained.
After Mara returned to Bellmere, she had gone through old boxes stored after the death of Sophie’s grandfather on her father’s side.
Among her things were copies of letters she had written but never sent.
She decided, finally, to search for me properly.
Not through Dad.
Not through family stories.
Herself.
She found my name online.
Then she found Lily’s school fundraiser page where I had been photographed with my granddaughter.
