Chapter 13 #2
I felt a wave of nausea rise in my throat, and I quickly folded the letter back up, shoving it into the envelope as if that could somehow contain the fear that was threatening to overwhelm me.
My chest tightened, and I struggled to steady my breathing.
The walls of the room seemed to close in on me as I placed the box back on the shelf, my hands still shaking.
I stumbled back, my mind racing with the implications of what I’d just discovered.
Had my entire life been shaped by a love that wasn’t mine?
Was I destined to repeat the same cycle, forever chasing the ghost of a relationship that should have been?
The questions echoed in my mind, relentless and unforgiving.
I sank to the floor, my back against the closet door, trying to make sense of it all.
But the truth was, I didn’t have any answers—only more doubts, more fears.
And the terrifying realization that perhaps, in Colson’s eyes, I had never truly been Josephine.
I had always been a reflection of the woman he had lost, a shadow of the love that had slipped through his fingers.
And now, as I sat there in the silence of my parents’ home, I wasn’t sure how to reconcile the pieces of my life that suddenly didn’t seem to fit together anymore.
I waited for my mother to come home, the weight of the discovery pressing heavily on my chest. My father wouldn’t be home for at least three more hours, and I needed to speak with her before he arrived.
When the front door finally creaked open, I heard her familiar footsteps, the scent of vanilla and sugar wafting through the air before she even stepped into the room.
Her chef’s coat was stained from a day at the bakery, the sweet smell of cupcakes and cookies clinging to her. But the moment she saw my face, her expression shifted. She knew.
She always knew.
My mother never lied to me, and I didn’t intend to hold her past against her. But I needed answers. I needed to know how deep her connection to Colson went, and what she felt when he chose me—her daughter—as his wife.
"Mom..." I began, my voice trembling slightly.
She cut me off, raising her hand to silence me. Without a word, she slipped off her coat and walked over to the stove, setting the kettle down to make tea. The clattering of the mugs she pulled from the cabinet filled the silence between us.
"You found them, didn’t you?" she asked, her voice steady but laced with a weariness that made my heart ache.
My face flushed with embarrassment. I hadn’t meant to invade her privacy. I was only looking for pieces of my childhood, something to ground me. I never expected to find those letters.
"Mom, why did you keep them?" I asked, my voice barely above a whisper.
She shook her head, her back still turned to me as she placed the mugs on the counter. The silence stretched on, the only sound the soft bubbling of the kettle as it began to heat.
"I don’t know," she finally said, her voice soft, almost distant.
I took a step closer, needing to see her face, to understand what she was feeling. "You don’t know?" I echoed, searching for clarity in her words.
She turned to me then, her eyes filled with a mixture of sadness and something else I couldn’t quite place.
"Maybe... maybe I kept them because they were a part of my past that I couldn’t fully let go of," she admitted, her gaze dropping to the floor.
"But they don’t mean anything now. Not the way they did back then. "
My heart pounded in my chest, the unspoken words hanging between us like a thick fog. "Did you love him?" I asked, the question slipping out before I could stop myself.
She met my eyes, her expression pained. "It was a long time ago, Joey. What I felt back then... it doesn’t matter anymore."
"But it does to me," I insisted, my voice trembling with emotion. "I need to know how you felt when he chose me, Mom. How did it feel to watch him marry your daughter?"
She sighed, the sound heavy with regret. "It wasn’t easy," she confessed, her eyes glistening with unshed tears. "But I knew that whatever we had was over long before that day. I made peace with it a long time ago."
I swallowed hard, the weight of her words settling in my chest. "And now? What do you feel now?"
She took a deep breath, her hands trembling slightly as she poured the boiling water into the mugs. "Now... I feel relief," she said quietly, handing me a mug. "Because I knew he loved you, Joey. He chose you because he saw something in you that he didn’t see in me."
I stared at the steaming mug in my hands, my mind racing. "And you’re okay with that?" I asked, my voice barely audible.
She nodded, a small, sad smile tugging at the corners of her lips. "I am. You’re my daughter, and all I’ve ever wanted is for you to be happy."
Her words were like a balm to the wound that had been festering in my heart. I took a sip of the tea, the warmth spreading through me, soothing the turmoil inside.
As we stood there in the kitchen, the smell of tea mingling with the remnants of her day at the bakery, I realized that this was the moment I needed.
Not just answers, but the reassurance that, despite everything, I was loved.
Not just by Colson, but by my mother too.
And that love, in its own way, was enough.