Phoebe.
One word written by a hand I hadn’t seen moving since I was twenty-three.
“What does it say?”
Dad shook his head.
“I don’t know.”
“You never opened it?”
“It isn’t mine.”
I looked at Leo.
Mom had written something for this exact version of me.
Not the daughter.
Not the accountant.
Not the wife.
The mother.
I slid one finger beneath the flap.
Then stopped.
Suddenly, I was afraid.
Not of bad news.
Of being understood by someone who had been gone eleven years.
Rowan touched my shoulder.
“You don’t have to read it tonight.”
I looked at him.
Then Dad.
Then Leo.
Maybe some truths arrived only when we were ready.
I carried the letter upstairs unopened.
Long after everyone was asleep, I sat beside Leo’s crib beneath the nursery lamp.
On the back of the envelope was a tiny sentence I hadn’t noticed.
For the day you understand that choosing your family is different from losing yourself inside it.
I stared at it for a long time.
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