“No, I’m not suggesting anything. I’m just saying that you’re being too mean to yourself. You’re intelligent, caring, and kind, Penny. You deserve peace and happiness. This choice is solely yours, and it comes with a lot of potential consequences. It’s not something you should take lightly. The fact that you didn’t just agree to be with him shows how much you’ve grown.”
I swallow and nod my head.
“Let’s get back to the letter,” she says and I groan at Deb. “You can be angry and mad at her. You’re allowed to feel however you need. It’s separate from her trauma.”
“I know. I went to a rage room with Linc,” I say. I swear her lip tilts in a half smile before it quickly disappears.
“That’s one way to get those feelings out. I’d like for you to write a letter of your own back. It’s not something you’d send. But I’d like you to write it, get it all out and then burn it.”
“I can do that.”
“We will move to weekly sessions for the foreseeable future to work through everything else as it comes,” she says.
My face falls, and she shakes her head. “Needing to see me more is not a backslide, Penny. It’s understanding yourself.”
I nod and leave the building, contemplating what to write into the letter.
It tookme three hours to get down the words I wanted to say, what I needed to get off of my chest. But the words are on paper and clutched in my hand as I sit on the rooftop deck.
It’s late and humid as the small fire pit lights up before me. I twiddle the paper between my fingers, considering keeping it. As cathartic as the words were to put on paper, something still feels off about the whole process.
The door to the rooftop slams and I jolt in my seat, immediately relaxing when I see it’s Lincoln approaching.
“Are you stalking me now?” I ask, as he rounds the patio furniture and takes a seat next to me. He holds out his beer and I scrunch my nose and shake my head.
“I’d say you’re stalking me. I come up here all the time,” he jokes, searching my face.
Neither of us mention this morning, the weekend, or anything between us. Thank God. I really don’t feel like crying anymore than I already have today.
“What’s that?”
I sigh and unfold it. “A letter to my biological mom, my therapist’s idea.”
“You aren’t going to give it to her?”
“No, Deb said I should write it and burn it. But I don’t know if that’s what I want to do.”
“What did you say in it?” he asks. His posture is relaxed as he leans back on the couch and searches my face.
I open up the letter and sigh. Reading it out loud feels real, raw, and terrible, but I do it anyway.
“I want you to know that I don’t blame you for putting me up for adoption. I can’t imagine what you went through or what your life was like. But I do know how my life went. I was blessed to be adopted by a good family who gave me the world. Not only a place to live and food to eat, but pure genuine love. So I want to thank you for that. I know life could have been wholly different if you didn’t make the choices you did.”
Lincoln’s palm reaches out and squeezes my thigh. I know I should shove him off, but I don’t. His touch is too comforting.
“But I’m still angry. I’m angry that you don’t want to meet me, that I built up what it would be like meeting my biological mom only to find out I was the product of abuse. I’ve spent a lot of my life feeling lost, like something was missing. I thought maybe once I knew where I came from, why I wasn’t wanted, maybe it would all make more sense. But now, I just feel more confused than ever. I know it’s not fair to put this anger and pain solely on you. You did what you had to. But I’m lost.”
I wipe a tear from my eye and breathe as I continue, not daring to look over at Lincoln.
“I realize I can’t push you for a relationship and I have to live with the unknown. It’s a hard pill to swallow, but I’m going to accept your boundaries. I’m not really sure what else to put in this letter besides my hopes. I hope that you find happiness andpeace. I wish the same for myself. I’m going to hold my family tight, and one day when I have children of my own, I’ll tell them about you, even if it is this little piece of you. Because even though you couldn’t take care of me, and you probably didn’t want me to be brought into the world, you did, and you did the best you could. So I guess all that’s left to say is thank you and I’m going to work on moving on with my life.”
I don’t even second guess it. Once the words are out, I toss the letter into the fire and watch it burn.
Lincoln doesn’t speak, but he pulls me close into his chest and I rest my head on his shoulder as we watch the letter burn together. I don’t know how it helped, but it did, saying everything I felt out loud.
“You did good,” Lincoln says softly.
I stay in his embrace for far longer than I should. He just feels too good and when he isn’t talking, it makes things easier.
