But one step at a time. If she reminded herself often enough, she’d come to believe it. Just as she’d once come to believe the lie.
The last box was smaller than the others and disappointing in its slight weight. Taking a deep breath, she pulled back the flaps. An old black Bible rested on top. Mia opened it and read the inscription.To Katherine. Love, Mama and Daddy.It was dated May 30, 1978.
Her mother would’ve been... eighteen at the time. Maybe it had been her graduation gift. Mia frowned. Her mother had left home shortly after her graduation. Had she brought the Bible with her? She must’ve, since her parents had written her off after she’d left.
Mia set aside the Bible, revealing a shoe box beneath it. She pulled out the box, which was filled with envelopes. Unopened letters, she realized as she withdrew a handful.
Her eyes homed in on the return address of the first one, written in a familiar script. The sender was Dorothy Livingston. Sucking in her breath, Mia flipped through the entire handful—ten or twelve letters, all from her grandmother.
A sudden coldness swept over Mia. Her mom had lied to her. Her parents hadn’t written her off. Dorothy had obviously made an effort to stay in contact. And Mia’s mom hadn’t even cared enough to open the letters.
Mia began sorting through all the envelopes in the box. When she was about halfway through, she found an envelope with different handwriting, the scrawl darker, more masculine. She pulled it out. The sender’s name was Everett James.
Mia’s father.
Mia blinked at the envelope as her heart flopped around her chest like a fish. The letter wasn’t addressed to her mom, but to Mia.
She turned the envelope over. Still sealed. She hastily went back to the box and continued sorting. She found more letters from her dad. Postcards too. She pulled them all out, a crazy mixture of excitement and wonder flooding through her.
Anger breathed just beneath the surface. Her dad had tried to keep in contact with her, and her mom had hidden that from her. How different might her life have been if she’d only known?
Mia put aside her feelings toward her mom and focused on the letters from her dad. She pulled out the tenth one, the twelfth one, and kept going.
He cared about me. He loved me.
The envelopes blurred as she sorted through them, but even through her tears she easily recognized the masculine scrawl. She got all the way through the box and counted the letters. Twenty-eight. There were twenty-eight letters from her father. She clutched them to her chest, her heart leaping with joy.
forty-seven
On Monday night Brooke came over to hang out. She’d brought Chinese food, and they chowed down before settling in the living room to watch their favorite Netflix movie. Brooke was heading out of town tomorrow morning, so it was their last night together before Mia went to Ireland.
Mia shifted on the sofa. The movie had been going for a while, but her mind was on other things. Her father, her grandparents, her mother, Levi. All of it was tangled up in her head like last year’s Christmas lights.
The image on the screen froze, and Mia’s eyes darted to Brooke, who was pointing the remote at the TV but looking at Mia.
“What’s wrong?” Mia asked.
“That was your favorite part, and you didn’t even laugh. You want to watch something else?”
“No.” Mia played with the tassel on a pillow. “It’s not the movie. I’m just distracted. Sorry.”
“What’s going on?”
She gave Brooke a long look. “I went through those boxes of my mom’s.”
“I was wondering. Did you find something upsetting?”
“You could say that. There were letters from my dad in there—unopened letters.”
“Mia.” Brooke shot upright in her seat. “Your dad wrote you? When?”
“Apparently he wrote me a lot when I was a kid—twenty-eight letters in all. He loved me, Brooke. His letters... They just made my heart melt. And all this time I thought he walked out the door and never looked back. My mother let me think that. Why would she do that?”
Brooke winced. “I don’t know. But at least you have the letters now. Did he say why he never came back to see you? Why he didn’t try to get visitation rights?”
“He didn’t mention anything like that. He asked about my life, even though he must’ve known, after a while, that I wasn’t going to write back. He must’ve thought I didn’t care about him. That I didn’t want him in my life. That I still don’t want him in my life.”
“Well, it’s not too late, is it? You can always write him or even go see him.”
