Sophie’s eyes filled.
“No.”
“I don’t.”
“Then tell me what you do know.”
She took a breath.
Mara had not remained with Daniel for long.
They lasted four months.
The romance collapsed under motel bills, cheap jobs and reality.
Mara was ashamed.
Too proud to call home immediately.
Then she did.
At least according to Sophie.
“How?”
“Letters.”
I frowned.
“What letters?”
“She wrote to you.”
“No.”
“She did.”
“I never received one.”
Sophie opened her bag.
Then stopped.
“Can I show you something?”
“Show me.”
She pulled out a clear plastic folder.
Inside were photocopies of envelopes.
My childhood address.
My name.
Claire Mercer.
Mara’s handwriting.
Dates.
My hands started shaking.
“That’s impossible.”
“There were twenty-three.”
I looked up.
“Twenty-three?”
“Over about eleven years.”
“She wrote me twenty-three letters?”
“Yes.”
“I received none.”
“I know.”
“How?”
Sophie’s expression changed.
“That’s part of what my mother needs to tell you.”
“No.”
“She has had forty years.”
“I’m asking you.”
Sophie hesitated.
Then said:
“Some of them came back.”
I stared.
“With what?”
“Return to sender.”
“Why?”
“On several, someone wrote that you no longer lived there.”
I laughed once.
“I lived there until I was twenty-two.”
“I know.”
“How?”
“My mother found out later.”
“Who wrote it?”
Sophie did not answer.
She didn’t need to.
Dad.
The thought arrived whole.
Cold.
Impossible.
Then not impossible at all.
“Did she ever come back?”
Sophie looked at me.
“Yes.”
“When?”
“1996.”
Ten years after she left.
Mara would have been twenty-six.
I had been living across town by then.
Mom was still alive.
Dad still lived in the same house.
“What happened?”
“My mother came to Bellmere.”
“Did she see Mom?”
“No.”
“Me?”
“No.”
“Dad?”
Sophie nodded.
I closed my eyes.
Of course.
Of course she did.
“What did he tell her?”
“I think you need to hear that from her.”
I opened my eyes.
“No more protecting people from their own words.”
Sophie flinched.
Then answered.
“He told her your mother had finally recovered.”
“He told her you were engaged.”
“I wasn’t.”
“He told her you had asked him never to give her your address.”
My stomach dropped.
“He said I said that?”
“Yes.”
I whispered:
“I searched for her until I was thirty.”
Sophie began crying.
“I know.”
“How?”
“My mother knows now.”
“When did she learn?”
“Six months ago.”
That surprised me.
“What happened six months ago?”
Sophie explained.
After Mara returned to Bellmere, she had gone through old boxes stored after the death of Sophie’s grandfather on her father’s side.
Among her things were copies of letters she had written but never sent.
She decided, finally, to search for me properly.
Not through Dad.
Not through family stories.
Herself.
She found my name online.
Then she found Lily’s school fundraiser page where I had been photographed with my granddaughter.
Mara recognized me immediately.
“She wanted to contact you,” Sophie said.
“Then why didn’t she?”
“She panicked.”
I laughed bitterly.
“She has had forty years to practice.”
Sophie did not defend her.
Good.
Instead she said:
“She asked me not to get involved.”
“And you ignored her.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Sophie looked at the photograph.
“Because she has spent my entire life talking about you as if you were a country she was exiled from.”
That hit me.
“She kept that picture in her wallet until it started falling apart.”
I looked at it.
The creases.
The worn corners.
“She carried this?”
“For decades.”
“Then why give it to Lily?”
“I made a copy.”
I almost smiled despite myself.
Almost.
Sophie continued:
“I saw Lily’s emergency contact form when she brought it to the art room by mistake.”
“Your name was listed as grandmother.”
“Claire Mercer.”
“I knew.”
“That still does not make involving an eight-year-old acceptable.”
