Nate's.
My breath left my lungs in a rough, stuttering exhale.
Beside the recliner was a small wooden table with a lamp.On the table sat a box.Not fancy, just sanded pine, the lid slightly ajar.
Eli knelt in front of me, his knees creaking against the hardwood.
“We were going to wait,” he said.“On all of this.On showing you.We thought… after the baby came, maybe.When you were ready.”
“I’m not ready,” I whispered hoarsely.“I’ll never be ready.”
“I know.”His eyes shone.“That’s why I had to stop waiting for perfect timing.Because grief doesn’t give us that.Hell, Tessa, life doesn't give us that.”
He reached for the box and lifted the lid.Inside it were neat stacks of letters.
The ones on the left were familiar, my own handwriting on the envelopes.Dadscrawled in shaky ink.Letters I’d written to the man whom I desperately wanted to feel connected to.
The ones on the right stopped my heart.
They were thicker.Longer pages, some folded, some in envelopes, some crammed on hotel stationery.And every single one had my name on it.
Tessa.
Tess.
Red.
Written in Nate’s handwriting.
I couldn’t breathe.
“I found them when we were going through his stuff at the farm,” Eli said softly.“He had them in his duffel bag in his bronco during the accident.It took us a while to go through it, because we thought it was just clothes.But when I opened it up and saw the letters.All of them were for you.”
A sob tore out of me, sharp and animalistic.
“I can’t...”I gasped.“I can’t read those.I can’t do this, Eli.”
“I know that is what you think, Tess.”Eli’s voice shook.“But you need to.You need to know he was trying, Tess.Even when he was fucking it up in real time.He was trying to put himself back together, and he wanted you to know every little bit of it.”
My hands hovered over the box and then retreated, like it was hot.
“I thought if we put your letters to your dad and his letters to you in the same place,” Eli said, “it might give you somewhere to put all of it.All the love.All the hurt.Somewhere that isn’t just weighing you down.”
“I’m so mad,” I whispered.“I’m so mad at him.At you.At everyone.At God.At hockey.At the road.At the ice.At the fact that I still wake from nightmares, hoping it was all just a dream and then remember he’s in a wooden box in the ground.”
“I know.”Eli’s eyes flooded.“Be mad.You get to be.”
“Eli...the baby...”My voice broke.“I’ve barely felt her.I’ve barely… looked at her in the ultrasounds.I don’t remember the last appointment.I just know people keep telling me to eat and take my vitamins, and I do it because they tell me to, and I…” I covered my face with my hands.“I’ve already failed her.”
“Hey,” he said sharply, gently prying my hands away.“Look at me.”
It took effort to drag my gaze up.When I finally met his eyes, they were fierce.
“You have not failed her,” Eli said, voice low, steady.“Your body has carried her every day through hell.You’ve kept her safe even when you didn’t want to be in your own skin.You showed up to appointments when you didn’t want to get out of bed.You breathed when you didn’t think you could.That is not failure.That is survival.”
Tears streamed hot down my cheeks.
He swallowed, glancing at the jersey on the wall, then back at me.
