Chapter Twenty-Five
Twenty-Five
Olivia
Then . . .
“There’s another letter for you on your nightstand.” My mother looked at me with that look. The one that begged me to let her in and let her share the burden.
But I’d already burdened her and my dad enough, coming home from Italy, full of shame and secrets, and though I’d told her most of the story in the throes of labor, I hadn’t told her everything—I hadn’t told her the worst of it—and she knew it. I saw it in her eyes every time she looked at me like that. And I’d nearly broken at least a dozen times in the last week as the postpartum hormones had their claws in deep and breastfeeding was hard and healing was hard and, well, it was all hard.
But I loved Elizabeth so much, it more than made up for all of it. Especially in the rare moments when she napped so I could rest.
“Thanks, Mom.”
She nodded and left me to it, making me all the more grateful that they’d let me come home to live with them and lick my wounds for a while until I figured out what I was going to do now that I was a single mom with no career to speak of anymore.
I sat on the bed, feeling the heaviness in my breasts that told me it was nearly feeding time, and picked up the envelope.
Christoph’s familiar curling script sent a wave of nausea through me. It dawned on me that he had this address from my emergency contact list on my application for the intensive. It just never occurred to me that he’d use it after the way we’d left things and the vile things he’d said.
His first letter had come about three months after I arrived home. His words were sweet and apologetic, letting me know he was getting a divorce and asking to reconcile, begging me to call him so he could explain. I could almost hear his voice as I read his words, like the Christoph I used to know.
I held on to that letter for days, agonizing over what to do with it. A part of me wanted to believe and forgive. A bigger part of me—the protective mother that now existed—was leery. She won.
Without telling a soul, I wrote him back a short note, telling him I’d lost the baby. I prayed that God would forgive that lie and not hold it against me, but I figured if it severed the tie between us and him, all the better.
Now, Elizabeth was a reality, pink and chubby and perfect, and a new letter with that same handwriting and Italian postmark was taunting me. What was there to possibly say now?
I glanced over as the baby started to squirm in her bassinet. She’d be waking and squalling with hunger in about two minutes.
“Damn it,” I whispered, knowing I couldn’t ignore it.
With nausea rolling heavy in my stomach, I slid my finger under the flap of the envelope and pulled out the single sheet of paper.
His words were simple, to the point, and utterly terrifying.
Olivia,
She is my daughter too. It would be unwise of you to forget that.
C.