Chapter 6
Liam read the sentence on the photograph three times.
SHE KEEPS ASKING WHY YOU NEVER ANSWERED HER LETTERS.
His face didn’t change.
That frightened me more than anger would have.
Leo stood near the foot of the bed, rigid and silent.
I looked between them.
“What do you mean Sophie has been writing?”
Leo rubbed a hand over his jaw.
“I knew she had sent letters.”
“How many?”
“I don’t know.”
Liam looked up.
“You don’t know.”
His voice was quiet.
Leo seemed to prefer being shouted at.
“I knew about the first few.”
“And you didn’t tell me?”
“I assumed you had received them.”
“How?”
“They were addressed here.”
“I received nothing.”
Leo looked troubled.
“The household mail goes through the security office.”
“Then find out what happened.”
“I will.”
“Now.”
Leo nodded and left.
Liam stared at the photograph.
I remained beside the window.
Morning sunlight still filled the room, but the warmth of the moment had vanished.
“Maybe there’s an explanation,” I said.
“There is always an explanation.”
“That doesn’t mean it’s a bad one.”
He gave me a look.
“Someone kept letters from a child for two years.”
“We don’t know that yet.”
“I know I didn’t receive them.”
“That’s different from knowing why.”
His eyes returned to Sophie’s photograph.
“She thinks I ignored her.”
The pain in his voice made me pull the chair closer.
“You don’t know what she thinks.”
“It’s written on the picture.”
“No.
Someone wrote that she keeps asking why you didn’t answer.”
“That sounds fairly clear.”
“She kept writing.”
He looked at me.
I pointed to the photograph.
“Think about that.
If she truly believed you wanted nothing to do with her, she might have stopped after one letter.
Or two.”
He said nothing.
“But she kept trying.”
His expression softened for a second.
Then the wall returned.
“Who sent the photograph?”
“I don’t know.”
“The person who followed us?”
“We don’t know that either.”
He exhaled sharply.
“You’re very irritating when you’re reasonable.”
“It’s a gift.”
He looked outside again.
I waited.
Eventually he said, “Her first day of second grade.”
“What?”
“Sophie.”
He ran his thumb along the edge of the photograph.
“She was seven when Elena died.
School started three weeks afterward.”
“You remember?”
“I remember everything about her.”
“Apparently she remembers you too.”
His jaw tightened.
“Anna.”
“I’m not making it sentimental.”
“You are absolutely making it sentimental.”
“Occupational hazard.”
A small sound escaped him.
Not a laugh.
But close.
I checked his morning medications.
“Pain?”
“Four.”
“Good.”
“Is four good?”
“For you?
It’s practically cheerful.”
He swallowed the pills without argument.
That was when I realized how much had changed.
May you like
The man who had thrown a glass at my head because I switched on a lamp was now sitting in direct sunlight, taking medication from my hand while holding a photograph of a child he hadn’t seen in three years.
Healing rarely looks dramatic when it happens.
