For several seconds, I couldn’t breathe properly.
My husband had been gone for thirteen years.
No birthday visits.
No Christmas mornings.
No phone calls that I knew about.
No appearances at school concerts, graduations, parent conferences, or hospital appointments.
As far as Lily and I knew, Carl had simply walked away.
And now his name was sitting between my father and me like a ghost.
I looked at the cardboard box.
“What is that?”
Dad pushed it toward me.
“Something you should have had a long time ago.”
I opened the lid.
Inside were thirteen envelopes.
Every one of them was sealed.
The first said:
For Lily — Age Six.
Then seven.
Eight.
Nine.
Ten.
Eleven.
All the way to eighteen.
My hands began to shake.
I knew that handwriting.
Carl’s.
Beneath Lily’s letters was one more envelope.
It had only one word written on the front.
Olivia.
Mine.
I looked at Dad.
“How long have you had these?”
He didn’t answer fast enough.
“Dad.”
His shoulders dropped.
“Carl sent them over the years.”
I stared at him.
“You’ve been hearing from him?”
“Occasionally.”
“You knew where he was?”
“Not always.”
“But you knew more than I did.”
