I glance at my mom, who’s sitting there, ramrod straight. Something in her expression and the way she won’t meet my eyes... Realization dawns on me.
“You never gave her the letter.” I don’t ask because I already know the answer. I turn my attention to Mark, who’s trying to put the pieces together.
“What letter?” Wren asks, angrily.
“I wrote you a letter after basic training,” I say. “Told you everything, starting with why I left. Told you how much I loved you–”
“If you loved me, you wouldn’t have left.”
“I told you I was letting you go because you deserved more than following me around the country while I tried to figure things out. I wasn’t saddling you with military life.”
Wren looks down at the table, shaking her head. “I never got a letter.”
She turns slowly toward her dad.
He doesn’t say anything. The truth is written all over his face.
Her voice comes out eerily calm. “You knew.”
Mark exhales slowly. “Wren…”
“You knew he wrote me,” she says, standing up now, her chair scraping against the floor.
“Nora and your mom… We thought it was better if you had a clean break,” he explains.
Saylor whistles under her breath, and I stare at Mom in disbelief.
“You thought it was better if I believed he just left me? That our relationship, hell, our friendship, wasn’t worth a goodbye?”
“You were eighteen and he was… He wasn’t ready for you.”
Ouch.
“So you decided for me?”
“We were trying to protect you.”
“Funny,” she says, voice taking on an edge. “You protected me so hard, you pushed me into...”
She stops herself from saying any more, and my hands form fists as I wonder who was in her life and who fucking hurt her.
Concern creases Mark’s forehead, and his eyes soften. “Wren.”
“No.” She backs toward the kitchen. “Ten years I questioned my worth and why I wasn’t good enough for him. I’ve faced unimaginable things. And the whole time, you knew the truth.”
“We thought we were helping,” Mom whispers, finally saying something.
“Well, you weren’t,” Wren barks, her voice breaking now. “It wasn’t your choice to rewrite my life based on what you thought was best for me.”
She looks at me one more time. Her eyes are softer now, but still angry and full of pain.
“It wasn’t your right to decide my life either,” she tells me before walking out. Seconds later, we hear the front door slam shut.
Nobody talks for what feels like forever.
Mark sits back slowly, rubbing his face like he’s aged years in minutes. Mom wipes her eyes with a napkin. Rachel sits awkwardly while Saylor tries to figure everything out. She was young when I left, and I don’t think anyone’s ever filled her inon the full story. Hell, I’m learning about the full story in real time.
I’m pissed. I trusted Mom to give Wren the letter after basic training. I didn’t have her new address, and I knew they’d be able to send it to her. Never could I have imagined she wouldn’t pass it along. I was already struggling with leaving her behind, and it pains me to know they thought I wasn’t good enough. I made one too many bad decisions, but she still deserved to know I didn’t abandon her. I still loved her, and I haven’t stopped in ten years.
