Her voice broke on the last word.
She opened another.
“Dear Sophie, you’re two today.
I came to your party but your grandmother asked me to leave before you saw me.
I watched you through the window.
You were wearing a yellow dress.
You looked so happy.
That’s all I ever wanted for you.”
Sophie put the letters down.
“She never gave me a single one.”
“I know.”
“All those years.
You were right there.
And she made sure I never knew.”
Clara sat beside her daughter.
They didn’t say anything for a while.
The letters were spread across the table — twenty years of words that never arrived.
“I graduated,” Clara said finally.
“I finished the degree I started before you were born.”
“I know.”
“I did it for me.
But I also did it because I wanted you to see that I didn’t give up.
