Mara recognized me immediately.
“She wanted to contact you,” Sophie said.
“Then why didn’t she?”
“She panicked.”
I laughed bitterly.
“She has had forty years to practice.”
Sophie did not defend her.
Good.
Instead she said:
“She asked me not to get involved.”
“And you ignored her.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Sophie looked at the photograph.
“Because she has spent my entire life talking about you as if you were a country she was exiled from.”
That hit me.
“She kept that picture in her wallet until it started falling apart.”
I looked at it.
The creases.
The worn corners.
“She carried this?”
“For decades.”
“Then why give it to Lily?”
“I made a copy.”
I almost smiled despite myself.
Almost.
Sophie continued:
“I saw Lily’s emergency contact form when she brought it to the art room by mistake.”
“Your name was listed as grandmother.”
“Claire Mercer.”
“I knew.”
“That still does not make involving an eight-year-old acceptable.”
“No.”
“You should have contacted me.”
“Yes.”
“You used Lily because you were afraid I’d refuse you directly.”
Sophie lowered her eyes.
“Yes.”
At least she was honest.
“Do not do it again.”
“I won’t.”
I looked at the copies of the letters.
Then asked:
“Where is Mara?”
Sophie gave me an address.
I did not go there.
Not yet.
I went to Willowcrest Nursing Residence.
Dad was playing cards with another resident when I arrived.
He smiled.
“There’s my girl.”
I almost turned around.
Girl.
At sixty-six, I was still his girl when it suited him.
I waited until his friend left.
Then placed one photocopied envelope on the table.
Dad’s face changed immediately.
Not confusion.
Recognition.
I knew before he spoke.
“You saw these.”
He stared.
“Where did you get that?”
“Mara.”
His fingers trembled.
“She’s alive?”
The question sounded genuine.
That complicated my anger.
“You knew she was alive in 1996.”
Dad closed his eyes.
I felt something inside me break.
“You saw her.”
“Yes.”
One word.
Forty years rearranged by one word.
“How many letters did you intercept?”
He looked toward the window.
“Dad.”
“I don’t remember.”
“Try.”
“Several.”
“Twenty-three?”
His face collapsed.
“Not all.”
“Wonderful.”
I leaned closer.
“How many did you give Mom?”
None.
He didn’t say it.
He didn’t need to.
“How many did you give me?”
Silence.
“None.”
“I thought—”
“No.”
He stopped.
“You do not get to start with what you thought.”
My voice shook.
“You tell me what you did.”
Dad looked suddenly old.
Not harmless.
Just old.
“The first letter came months after she left.”
“Your mother was barely functioning.”
“She had stopped eating.”
“She woke every night.”
“You were angry.”
“I was sixteen.”
“You said terrible things about Mara.”
“I was sixteen.”
He nodded.
“I know.”
“Did you?”
“I thought if I gave your mother that letter, Mara would pull all of us back into chaos.”
“So you hid it.”
