Chapter 2 - THE LETTER
I read the sentence again beneath the passing streetlights.
Below it, my father had written:
Eleven days ago, Roland sent my office a funding proposal. It included an email that appeared to come from you. I don’t believe you wrote it.
My fingers tightened around the paper.
The letter continued.
I tried to reach you. When you said you needed space, I respected that. I am afraid I respected it too easily.
You never have to earn your way back into my house.
“Raymond?”
He glanced at me in the mirror.
“Did my father call me last week?”
“I believe he tried several times.”
I had one missed call from Dad. One.
Roland had told me he’d spoken to him afterward.
Your father understands we need privacy.
I remembered being grateful.
Now that memory made my stomach turn.
At the house, Dad was waiting on the front steps in socks and an old sweater. Behind him stood a woman I recognized from childhood, Mrs. Alvarez, carrying folded towels.
No speeches. No questions about my marriage.
Dad looked at Wren.
“May I?”
I placed her in his arms and suddenly started crying.
Not pretty tears. Not quiet ones.
The kind that bent me forward until Raymond took the bag from my shoulder.
Dad put one hand against the back of my head.
“All right,” he said. “You’re here.”
Inside, a lamp glowed beside the same sofa where I had fallen asleep watching movies as a teenager.
Someone had made soup.
Someone had put water beside it.
There was a clean bassinet near the couch.
I stared at everything.
“Did you know I was coming?”
“No,” Dad said. “I hoped you might let me visit.”
He had bought the bassinet for Wren.
Roland had said my father was too busy to care.
When I could speak, I held up the letter.
“What money?”
Dad’s face changed.
“Let’s feed you first.”
“No. Please.”
He sat across from me.
“One hundred eighty thousand dollars. He called it an investment in his freight business.”
Roland had told me the business was doing well.
“He said you’d discussed it with me?”
Dad nodded.
Then he handed me a printed email.
The sender’s name was mine.
Dad, Roland and I agreed this is how you can help after the baby comes. Please don’t make him beg. I need you to trust my husband.
At the bottom was my usual sign-off.
Love you. Talk Sunday.
I had never written a word of it.
May you like
My phone lit up again.
Roland: Whatever your father is telling you, let me explain first.
