The dry edges of the paper scrape against the content of the letter as I fold it back up and lay it to the side, picking up the next one, seeing it was dated just a week or so after the first.
Rory,
Alexis tells me you’ve left. She says Wyatt Grady thinks you moved away.
I can only hope you’re using mail forwarding, otherwise this letter won’t find you.
Or maybe you’re just on a sabbatical, clearing your head, and this letter will be waiting for you when you come back home.
You’ve always needed something to help clear your mind for you, it’s so busy when you’re left to your own devices. Sometimes, when I stand close to you, I wonder if I’ll be able to hear it as you’re thinking yourself into overdrive. Like a car engine, you’re just pedal to the medal, zero to sixty in a second flat.
There are days I think it’d be easier if you were more like me, or your sister. One look at our faces, and you know just what we’re thinking. Maybe if you blew up at me, we could start moving past this.
You and your mother, though, you hold your cards close to your chest until you’re ready for everyone else to know what’s on your mind.
I just hope you decide to let me know what’s on your mind and you don’t shut me out for good over this.
I’m sorry for the way my actions hurt you and your sister.
I understand if you never forgive me. But I hope you keep me in your life anyway.
Love,
Dad
My mind takes me back to those first times I saw him after Mom kicked him out. It was tough. I was only twenty-five or so, barely had any control over my sharp tongue, if I even do now.
I said some harsh things and didn’t hold back on what I thought of what he did to Mom and our family.
I think it was the second time I saw him after he moved out that I told him about Rory.
But never once, in all the times I saw him since he left, did he ever tell me he’d been writing her letters.
Fingers going numb, I quickly reach for the next one, leaning back with it, forgetting to keep the tears from rolling past the rim of my eyelids.
Rory,
Your phone number stopped working. Maybe I broke it by leaving too many voicemails these past few weeks.
Apparently you haven’t come back yet, so if you really did get a new address somewhere, maybe you got yourself a new phone number to go along with it.
I miss you, Dove. I can only imagine how much your mama misses you too. Her heart was split open enough by what I did to her. Your sister’s, too, for that matter.
Please don’t punish them for my mistakes. I did that enough already.
And that poor Grady boy, Lexi tells me the word around town is he’s a shell of a man. He loves you in a way I never could your mother. Sounds like he isn’t doing too good without you.
If you don’t want to hear from me, I can stop trying to contact you. But for their sakes, please don’t cut everyone else out. I deserve it. They don’t.
You’re the center of their world, Dove.
Without you, I worry about all of them.
Love,
Dad
It takes hours to go through the letters, one by one, rereading, staining some of the aging paper with my tears.
