Chapter 7 - THE LETTER MY MOTHER SENT BACK
Peter’s letter arrived two days later.
Rebecca had overnighted it.
I recognized Mom’s handwriting on the copied envelope.
RETURN TO SENDER.
My mother had intercepted it.
Ten years earlier.
When I was forty-four.
Not pregnant.
Not fragile.
Not dependent.
Forty-four.
She could no longer claim she was protecting a young daughter.
She was protecting a secret.
The letter began:
Laura,
You don’t know me, but you should.
My name is Peter Lawson.
I am your biological father.
I stopped reading.
Joe sat across from me.
“Did you ever see this?”
“No.”
I believed him.
Peter did not ask me to forgive him.
That mattered.
He admitted blackmailing Mom.
Admitted threatening her.
Admitted taking money he had no right to take.
Then he wrote:
Margaret did not keep me away because she was ashamed of you. She kept me away because I gave her good reasons to believe I would damage your life.
I hated him for making Mom sound understandable.
Then:
Richard Hale was your father in every way I failed to be.
That sentence broke me.
Richard.
The man who stayed.
The man who packed my lunches.
The man who sat awake beside me when I had pneumonia.
DNA suddenly mattered less.
Peter continued:
Joe knew what I was. He never liked me, and he had every reason not to.
But Joe also argued with Margaret because he believed you should know the truth once you were old enough to choose what to do with it.
I looked up.
Joe’s eyes were wet.
“Is that true?”
“Yes.”
“How many times?”
“More than I can count.”
“Then why did you keep agreeing to silence?”
His answer was simple.
“Because I loved you more than I trusted myself to survive losing you.”
That was selfish.
Human.
Painful.
Honest.
Peter’s letter ended with a phone number.
Disconnected now.
And one final sentence:
If Margaret still refuses to tell you, ask her why she planted the maple before the box was buried.
I frowned.
I had always assumed they planted the tree to mark the hiding place.
Apparently not.
Joe looked confused too.
“That’s not how I remember it.”
“What do you mean?”
“The maple was already planted when we buried the box.”
My stomach tightened.
“When?”
“The afternoon before Peter came to the house.”
Before the confrontation.
Before the blood.
Before the secret was buried.
May you like
Mom had planted the red maple for another reason.
And whatever that reason was, Peter believed it mattered.
