Never delivered.
Inside was a single sheet.
Mara,
You keep asking whether you did the right thing.
I cannot answer that.
But I can tell you something I learned too late.
A choice can be necessary and still hurt.
A choice can hurt and still lead somewhere good.
Do not spend your whole life punishing yourself for surviving the part you thought would break you.
There was one final paragraph.
I read it twice.
Then I looked at Dad.
“What?” he asked.
I handed him the letter.
He read.
His face changed.
Because Ruth had written:
Someday your first daughter may come looking.
If she does, tell her there was always a place here for her.
And beneath that sentence Ruth had drawn a tiny map.
A rectangle.
The garden.
In the far corner she had marked an X.
Beside it were two words.
For Rebecca.
Dad stared toward the northeast corner of the property.
