But to understand why that box mattered so much, you also need to understand the birthdays.
Thirteen of them.
When Chloe turned eighteen, I bought her a delicate gold necklace with a tiny star pendant.
She used to doodle stars in the corners of her notebooks.
I wrapped it myself.
Took it to the post office.
And waited.
Two weeks later, the package came back.
RETURN TO SENDER.
I cried quietly in the laundry room so David wouldn’t hear me.
When Chloe turned twenty-one, I bought her a soft leather handbag.
I imagined her carrying it to her first serious job interview.
That came back too.
At twenty-five, I sent her a cookbook.
She used to love baking.
I remembered the cookies we once made together.
Banana bread.
A crooked birthday cake we attempted for David.
That package returned unopened as well.
Eventually, I tried calling.
The phone rang.
She never answered.
I asked David to please speak to her.
He told me he had.
“She doesn’t want you involved in her life,” he said one night.
I sat on the edge of our bed.
“Did I do something?”
“No, honey.”
“Then why does she hate me?”
“She’s still grieving her mother. She thinks I chose you over her.”
That explanation hurt.
But it made enough sense that I accepted it.
So I stopped asking questions.
I did not stop sending gifts.
A scarf.
A journal.
Earrings.
Something small every birthday.
Every year, they came back.
And every year, I placed the unopened package on the top shelf of the closet.
Maybe next year.
That became my private lie.
Then came birthday number thirteen.
I bought Chloe a silver picture frame.
I wrapped it in blue paper because blue had been her favorite color when she was seventeen.
As I sat on the bedroom floor holding it, something inside me finally gave up.
I realized I didn’t even know whether she still liked blue.
I barely knew anything about the woman she had become.
She was thirty years old now.
A stranger.
I whispered to myself,
“She’s been telling you for twelve years that she doesn’t want this. You need to listen.”
So I slowly unwrapped the frame.
I put it in the closet with all the other gifts that had come back.
For the first time, I sent nothing.
I didn’t tell David.
I simply went downstairs and made dinner.
Three days passed.
Oddly enough, I felt lighter.
