“Good for her.”
I looked up in surprise. “What?”
Her voice broke on the next words. “Good for her.” She paused, pressing her lips together until she could continue. “She chose herself.”
“Mom...”
“Don’t waste this, Jacob.” She reached across the table and gripped my hand with surprising strength. “Don’t waste the lesson she taught you. Don’t become your father.”
“It’s too late. She’s gone. She blocked my number. I don’t even know where she is.”
My mother was quiet for a moment, then she stood and walked to the bedroom she shared with my father. When she came back, she was carrying an old shoebox, the cardboard soft and worn at the edges.
“Do you know why I stayed with your father?” she asked, setting the box on the table between us.
“Because you thought you had to.”
“Mostly. But there’s a little more to the story.” She lifted the lid, and I saw what was inside—dozens of envelopes, some yellowed with age, all addressed in handwriting I recognized as my father’s. “These are from when he was in prison. The first few times, before you were born. And then again when you were four, and when you were seven.”
I remembered that. Years of my childhood when my father was just a voice on the phone and a figure behind glass during visiting hours.
“He wrote to me every week,” my mother continued, picking up one of the envelopes and running her thumb across the familiar handwriting. “Sometimes twice a week. And in these letters...” She paused, her voice catching. “In these letters, he was a different man. He told me he loved me. He told me he was sorry for the way he’d treated me. He promised things would be different when he got out.”
“But they weren’t.”
“No. They weren’t.” She set the envelope down gently. “But I kept waiting for the man in these letters to come back. The man who could admit he was wrong, who could be vulnerable, who could say the things he was too proud to say in person.” She looked at me with those sad eyes. “That’s why I stayed, Jacob. I kept hoping the man who wrote these letters was the real Willem, and the man who dismissed me and cheated on me was just... a mask he wore for the world.”
I stared at the shoebox full of my father’s words, decades of promises he’d never kept.
“Why are you showing me this?”
“Because your father could never say these things out loud. He could only write them. Some men are like that—they can only be honest when they’re alone with a piece of paper, when there’s no one watching them be vulnerable.” She pushed the box toward me.
“Indira doesn’t want to hear from me.”
“Then write to her.” My mother’s voice was firm. “Don’t make promises you might not keep like your father did. But tell her the truth. To say the things you couldn’t say when you were too busy being president of the Venom Riders. If nothing else, it will give you closure so you can move on.”
I picked up one of the envelopes, feeling the weight of my father’s words in my hands. The paper was soft from being read and reread over the years.
“He really wrote all these?”
“Every one. And I read them whenever I need to remember that the man I married is in there somewhere, even if he’s buried too deep to reach anymore.” She closed the box and slid it back toward herself. “Don’t let that happen to you, Jacob. Don’t wait until it’s too late to say what needs to be said.”
I stayed at my parents’ house for three more days, and every moment was a revelation. I watched my father dismiss my mother’s opinions, interrupt her when she spoke, make decisions about their life without consulting her. I watched her shrink into herself whenever he was around, only coming alive during the brief moments when he was out of the house.
On my last day, I pulled my mother aside while King was at the hardware store.
“I’m setting up a bank account for you,” I said quietly. “Just yours. I’m putting fifty thousand in it to start, and I’ll transfer five thousand every month.”
“Jacob, I can’t—”
“You can and you will. Mom?” I waited until she met my eyes. “You can call me anytime, day or night. If you need anything, if you just need someone to talk to. If you want to leave, I’ll come get you myself.”
Tears filled her eyes, but she nodded.
The morning I left, my mother stood in the doorway watching me strap my bag to the bike. My father was still asleep.
“Call me when you get home,” she said.
