Chương 7
She has your ridiculous eyebrows.
I am not ready to bring her into your life, and I am definitely not ready to bring you into hers, but grief has made me less certain about permanent decisions.
If you want to write back, write to me.
Do not send money.
Do not send a lawyer.
Do not send someone to check on us.
Just write.
Anna
Richard read it twice.
Then he opened the second.
Lily was four in the photograph.
She sat on a playground swing wearing yellow rain boots and laughing toward the person behind the camera.
Richard had seen the same laugh six days ago at Gloria Ortiz’s kitchen table.
The letter was shorter.
Dad,
This is Lily at four.
I almost sent the picture last Christmas. Then I remembered you once had an assistant call my college roommate to find out whether I was “making sound decisions,” and I changed my mind.
I know that is ancient history to you.
It is not ancient history to the person it happened to.
Still, I’m sending this.
You can be angry at me.
Please don’t be angry at her for existing outside your permission.
Anna
Richard pressed the heel of his hand against his mouth.
He did not open the third letter for almost an hour.
When he finally did, there was no photograph.
Dad,
I’m sick.
I don’t know yet how bad this gets.
I have good people around Lily, but none of them can promise forever.
I have spent years telling myself keeping her from you was protection. Some of it was. Some of it was punishment.
I need to admit that before I die, even if I never send this.
You loved me.
You also tried to own the shape of my life.
Those things can both be true.
If Lily ever comes to you, do not turn her into a second chance at me.
She is not me.
She does not owe you forgiveness because I am gone.
If she wants you, be there.
If she does not, be there farther away.
And if you ever tell her I kept her from you because I hated you, I swear I will find a way to haunt that enormous house.
Anna
At the bottom, beneath her signature, she had written:
She likes apples cut too thick.
Richard laughed once.
Then he cried.
Not gracefully.
There was nobody in the room to witness it, and that helped.
He bent over the desk, one hand covering his face, the other resting on Anna’s last letter.
When the worst of it passed, he sat up.
His first thought was to show Lily.
His second was that the letters were his.
His third was that Anna had written them for him, not for her daughter.
For once, Richard did not decide immediately.
He called Denise.
“I found letters from Anna.”
“Okay.”
“I want to show Lily.”
“Does Lily want to see them?”
Richard looked at the envelopes.
“I don’t know.”
“Then ask.”
He almost laughed.
Everybody seemed determined to make him ask permission for things.
Possibly, he thought, because nobody had forced him to do it enough.
That afternoon Lily was sitting on Gloria’s front steps wearing the charcoal coat over jeans and a sweatshirt.
The coat nearly touched the pavement.
“You look ridiculous,” Richard said.
Lily looked down at herself.
“You gave it to me.”
“I loaned it to you.”
“You said keep it.”
“I made a costly mistake.”
She shifted over, leaving space.
Richard sat beside her.
For a while they watched cars pass.
A delivery truck stopped across the street.
Someone’s dog barked from a fenced yard.
Lily picked at the coat sleeve.
“I saw the video.”
Richard looked at her.
“From the ballroom?”
She nodded.
“Who showed you?”
“Nobody. Kids at school did.”
Richard felt anger rise.
“Did they bother you?”
“They asked if I’m rich now.”
“What did you say?”
“I said no.”
Technically, Richard thought, that answer might soon become complicated.
He wisely kept this to himself.
Lily said, “Victoria looks scared.”
“She was.”
“Good.”
Richard looked at her.
Lily stared at the street.
“My mom said being mean back feels good for five minutes.”
“She was right about that too.”
“What happens after five minutes?”
“Usually paperwork.”
Lily laughed.
Richard smiled.
Then he took the envelopes from inside his coat.
“I found letters from your mother.”
Lily stopped laughing.
“She wrote to you?”
“Yes.”
“You said she didn’t.”
“I was wrong.”
“Were you lying?”
“No.”
She looked at him sharply.
Richard let the question stay sharp.
“I never received them. Years ago, when your mother and I were fighting, I gave my staff instructions not to bring me anything she sent unless she came in person.”
Lily’s face changed.
“That’s dumb.”
“Yes.”
“You missed her letters because you were mad?”
“Yes.”
“How many?”
“Three.”
Lily looked at the envelopes.
“Can I read them?”
Richard hesitated.
That surprised her.
“They’re about you too.”
“So?”
“Some things may hurt.”
“My mom is dead. Stuff already hurts.”
Richard nodded.
He handed her the letters.
Lily read slowly.
She started with the oldest.
Her lips moved on difficult sentences.
When she reached the line about the ridiculous eyebrows, she touched her face.
Richard looked away so she could smile without being watched.
She read the second letter.
Then the third.
By the end, her eyes were full.
She did not cry.
Richard did not offer a tissue.
After a while Lily said, “She was mad at you.”
“Yes.”
“She loved you.”
Richard stared at the sidewalk.
“I think so.”
“She said it.”
“I know.”
“Then why did you say think?”
Richard rubbed his thumb along a crack in the concrete.
“Because sometimes knowing somebody loved you makes what you did worse.”
Lily considered that.
“What did you do?”
Richard took a long breath.
“I tried to make too many choices for her.”
May you like
“Like what?”
“Where she went to school. Who she dated. What jobs were respectable. Where she lived.”
