Chapter 16
I looked at her.
Grace had stopped reading.
Arthur turned around.
“What?”
Grace pointed at a paragraph.
“Your wife knew I wanted nursing school.”
Arthur’s expression softened.
“Eleanor remembered everything people told her.”
Grace kept reading.
After our parents died, Eleanor had wanted to contact us.
Arthur had been devastated by his wife’s declining health at the time, and Eleanor feared that introducing herself might create more confusion for three children already dealing with too much change.
Instead, she wrote a letter.
She placed it in the cedar box.
And apparently never sent it.
Her final paragraph explained why.
Grace read slowly.
“‘If I send this now, I may be asking you to carry my regret when you already have enough of your own. So I will leave this with the hope that one day, if circumstances permit, you may read it when the past has become something you can examine without letting it decide what comes next.’”
Nobody spoke.
Arthur wiped his eyes with one finger and pretended he hadn’t.
Helen noticed.
She pretended not to notice too.
Grace folded the pages.
Then she placed Mom’s envelope on the table.
Annie leaned toward me.
“Is she going to open it?”
“I think so.”
Grace looked at us.
“This was written to me.”
I nodded.
“You don’t have to read it out loud.”
Her eyes softened.
“Thank you.”
She picked up the envelope and walked into Arthur’s library.
Alone.
Nobody followed.
We waited.
Ten minutes passed.
Then twenty.
Arthur paced once across the kitchen.
Helen told him to stop.
He sat.
Mrs. Alvarez finally reheated the hot chocolate.
Annie drank hers.
I couldn’t.
After nearly half an hour, Grace returned.
She had been crying.
Not the frightening kind.
Quiet tears.
The kind that seemed to leave more room inside a person afterward.
She sat beside us.
Annie immediately hugged her.
Grace held her for a long moment.
“What did Mom say?” I asked.
Grace looked at the envelope.
“A lot.”
“You don’t have to tell us.”
“I want to tell you some of it.”
Arthur stood.
“I can leave.”
Grace surprised everyone.
“Stay.”
May you like
He sat again.
Grace smoothed the pages.
