Sam was looking at Diane.
I stopped breathing for a second.
Deeper in the box was another picture.
Uncle Mike stood beside Diane, his arm around her shoulders.
Connor stood in front of them with a baseball glove. He looked about nine.
Mom had kept it anyway.
Sam was looking at Diane.
The next morning, I opened Mom’s recipe box, needing something familiar.
Instead, an envelope slipped onto the counter.
“My Mia.”
My hands shook as I opened it.
Mom didn’t soften anything.
She wrote about Sam, about Diane, and about marrying Dad, realizing she’d been given a good life yet still refusing to let go of an old wound.
“My Mia.”
Then I reached the line that made me sit down.
“Maybe Mike and Diane would’ve lasted six months. Maybe 40 years. I took it upon myself to make sure they never got to find out.”
I covered my mouth.
She wrote that Dad had confronted her too.
“He told me loving Mike didn’t give me the right to choose for him. I was furious because I knew he was right.”
Then came the final sentence.
“I was furious because I knew he was right.”
“Please don’t make me better than I was just because you miss me.”
I grabbed my keys.
Connor had given me his address after the funeral. I pulled it from my purse and drove straight there.
Connor looked startled when he opened the door.
“Mia?”
Diane appeared behind him.
I walked inside and placed Mom’s letter on the table.
I grabbed my keys.
“Did she tell you everything?”
Diane looked at the handwriting.
“Yes.”
“Then why did you let her keep coming back?”
“Because she didn’t ask me to erase what happened. She didn’t ask me to pretend it never did.”
I sat across from her.
“Did she apologize?”
“Did she tell you everything?”
“Not properly the first time.”
“What happened?”
“We argued.”
That sounded like Mom.
“The second visit was different,” Diane said. “She told me she’d spent years making me carry pain that belonged to her.”
“Did you forgive her?”
That sounded like Mom.
“Eventually.”
“Why?”
Diane held my gaze.
