CHAPTER 16: A LETTER FROM LAUREL
Laurel’s first message reached me through Nora on Friday afternoon.
It was not the letter hidden in my father’s wall.
She had written it that morning after hearing what Patricia had done.
Nora read it aloud because Laurel wasn’t ready to speak with me directly.
She said she remembered our last argument and regretted letting it become the last thing I heard from her.
She explained that she had spent the early years of her disappearance convinced she could return home after Owen’s case ended.
Then she learned that our father had told Victor where to find them.
She could not bear to walk into the kitchen and see him sitting there.
By the time the legal danger passed, she had constructed a life that no longer included us.
She married briefly, divorced amicably, and worked as a youth counselor.
She had tried to write to me several times.
Each attempt ended with the same question.
How could she explain twenty years of silence without sounding as if she expected forgiveness?
I asked Nora to tell her that I didn’t know the answer either.
Nora smiled sadly.
“That’s more honest than pretending you do.”
I took the sealed envelope from the wall compartment and placed it on the table.
“What does this one contain?” I asked.
Nora studied the date on the back.
“Thomas drafted that shortly before he died,” she said.
“He wanted Claire to hold it until you were ready.”
We called Claire and asked whether I should open it.
She said yes, now that I had learned the history from people who could correct its mistakes.
Inside was a short letter addressed to Laurel.
My father had written that he had spent decades confusing regret with responsibility.
He promised not to ask her to forgive him.
He asked only that she remember he had loved her even while making the worst decision of his life.
A separate page was addressed to me.
It contained one sentence.
I should have trusted my children enough to tell them the truth.
