That night, I stood at my desk with the key over the drawer.
Tom watched me.
“You’re putting it away?”
“I was.”
“But what changed?”
I closed my hand around it.
“I’m done just keeping things safe, Tom. I need answers.”
We drove to Mom’s house.
After checking her desk and sewing cabinet, I went upstairs.
Behind a stack of blankets in her closet sat a wooden box.
The key turned.
Inside were dozens of envelopes, all addressed to Elaine.
Tom picked one up.
“Eleven years’ worth of them?”
I nodded.
“She never sent them.”
My phone was already in my hand.
I called Elaine before I could talk myself out of it.
When she answered, I said, “I found something Mom spent 11 years hiding from both of us.”
Elaine came the next afternoon.
Tom opened the door, greeted her briefly, then left us alone. I led her upstairs.
She stopped in Mom’s bedroom when she saw the envelopes spread across the bed.
“You found those?”
I turned. “You knew about them?”
“Not those.”
She stepped closer and picked up one birthday card.
“I have a box too.”
I stared at her.
“A box of what?”
“Letters to your mother. Birthday cards. Christmas cards. Things I wrote and never mailed.”
“Why?”
Elaine looked down at the envelope in her hand.
“Because every time I finished one, I imagined Doris sending it back unopened.”
“So both of you spent 11 years writing to each other without actually speaking.”
Her mouth tightened.
“Apparently.”
I started arranging the cards by year.
Elaine watched my hands.
She set the card down.
“Do you remember my call five years ago? On your mother’s birthday?”
My stomach tightened.
“You asked how she was.”
“I asked whether she ever talked about me.”
I already knew where this was going.
“What did you tell me, Maeve?”
I looked at her.
“Not really.”
Elaine’s eyes filled.
“Do you know what I heard?”
I didn’t answer.
“I heard that my sister had moved on.”
“Aunt Elaine…”
“Was it true?”
That was the question I couldn’t smooth over.
“No.”
She went still.
