“I found this tucked behind the frame of the picture Dad keeps in the back of his closet,” Sophie whispered, her voice trembling. “It’s dated two weeks after she left. It was never opened, Val. Not by Dad. Not by anyone.”
I took the small, folded square of paper. The parchment felt brittle, yellowed by twelve years of attic heat and silence. My name, Valerie, was written in that sharp, slanted cursive I used to see on my permission slips and lunchbox notes. For a moment, the room felt like it was tilting. The air grew heavy with the scent of my father’s pot roast and the lingering sweetness of birthday cake—a domestic warmth that felt suddenly insulted by the ghost of the woman who had abandoned it.
I didn’t want to open it. I wanted to burn it, to take a lighter to that elegant script and watch the “your fault” girl turn into ash. But Sophie was watching me, her eyes pleading for a truth she was too young to remember.
With shaking fingers, I unfolded the paper.
Valerie,
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