Chapter 6 - THE EDITOR WHO KNEW BEFORE I DID
Miriam Lowe was the woman from the grief group who first told me my pages were a book.
I called her that afternoon.
“Did you ever speak to Daniel?”
“No.”
“Lauren?”
“No.”
“Anyone in my family?”
Silence.
That was enough.
“Miriam.”
“Your mother called me once.”
My chest tightened.
“When?”
“Before we submitted the manuscript.”
Impossible.
My mother had told everyone she barely knew I was writing.
“What did she want?”
“To know whether the book could make money.”
Of course.
Miriam sounded embarrassed.
“I told her most books don’t.”
“What else?”
“She asked whether family members can be paid if stories about them are included.”
I laughed.
It was almost funny.
Then:
“Did she tell Daniel?”
“I don’t know.”
But somebody had.
The memorial trust clause appeared around the same time.
Then Miriam said:
“There’s another thing.”
Of course.
The first publisher that rejected my book did not simply reject it.
An editor there had been interested.
Very interested.
Then suddenly withdrew.
Why?
The press received a letter claiming there could be “family privacy litigation.”
From who?
An attorney representing Margaret and Frank Parker.
My parents.
Dad knew nothing about it.
Mom had done it.
She tried to stop publication.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Miriam sighed.
“Because there was no lawsuit. The publisher got nervous. We moved on.”
Small press said yes anyway.
Thank God.
Then:
“Do you still have the letter?”
“Yes.”
My mother’s attorney wrote:
The proposed manuscript may contain private family communications, defamatory characterizations, and exploitative material related to a deceased minor.
Exploitative.
My own daughter.
My own grief.
My own memories.
Then one line:
Mrs. Parker is particularly concerned that publication could interfere with private arrangements regarding future media rights associated with the child’s story.
My hands went cold.
“What private arrangements?”
Miriam did not know.
Neither did I.
Rebecca found out.
Three months after Sophie died, my mother had contacted a regional television producer.
Not to tell my story.
To pitch her own.
Grandmother Loses Grandchild While Estranged Daughter Struggles.
I stared at the proposal.
Margaret described herself as:
A devoted grandmother navigating exclusion from a beloved child’s final months.
Exclusion.
She had refused to help.
Refused to come.
Then reinvented herself as the person kept away.
The producer declined.
But one page included something else.
Potential source material:
Sophie’s letters and drawings held by family.
My pulse changed.
“What letters?”
Dad only had one.
Grace had notebook pages.
What did Mom have?
I called Dad.
He went silent.
“Your mother took a box from the funeral home.”
“What box?”
The hospital had returned Sophie’s personal items.
I remembered receiving most of them.
Stuffed horse.
Sweater.
Books.
But apparently there had been another cardboard box.
My mother volunteered to carry it.
I never saw it again.
“What was inside?”
Dad did not know.
Then he said:
“There was a pink folder.”
I remembered it instantly.
Sophie’s social worker had given her a pink folder for art therapy.
Letters.
Drawings.
Questions she was too scared to say aloud.
I thought it had been lost at the hospital.
It hadn’t.
May you like
My mother had taken it home.
And for almost a year, she had kept the most private things my daughter wrote while dying.
