Hannah gave a short, bitter laugh.
“Great.”
Then she walked inside.
I followed.
She grabbed her purse.
“Where are you going?”
“I need space.”
“Please don’t leave like this.”
She turned toward me.
“How exactly am I supposed to leave?”
I had no answer.
She spent the night at my sister’s house.
The next morning, David placed the wooden chest on our dining table.
I couldn’t stop staring at it.
“Why didn’t you ever tell me about this?”
He looked exhausted.
“Because you would have gotten rid of it.”
“I would not.”
He gave me a look.
“You dismantled Rosie’s crib before I came home from the funeral home.”
“That was different.”
“You made your mother remove the hospital photograph.”
“I couldn’t look at it.”
“Exactly.”
I sat down.
David ran his hand over the chest.
“I didn’t plan to keep it from you forever.”
“Eighteen years isn’t forever?”
“I kept thinking eventually you would be ready.”
I laughed softly.
“Apparently none of us was ever ready.”
I opened the box.
One of Rosie’s newborn hats sat near the top.
I touched it.
It was impossibly small.
My hands began shaking.
“I thought if I saw any of this again, I would fall apart.”
“I know.”
“That’s what you were doing in the garage every birthday?”
David nodded.
“I wrote Hannah another letter.”
“What did you write?”
“Everything I wished we were brave enough to tell her.”
I looked at him.
“You should have made me tell her.”
His expression hardened.
“I tried.”
“No. You asked me.”
“Helen, you know I tried.”
“You brought it up and then accepted no.”
“What was I supposed to do? Tell our daughter behind your back?”
I looked at him.
“Maybe.”
The word surprised both of us.
Then I started crying.
“Maybe someone should have.”
Hannah returned two days later.
She barely spoke to either of us.
She carried the wooden chest upstairs to her room.
For three days, she read David’s letters.
Not all at once.
A few at a time.
Sometimes she came downstairs with swollen eyes.
Sometimes angry.
Sometimes completely silent.
On the fourth evening, she entered the kitchen holding one envelope.
HANNAH — AGE 12.
She looked at David.
“You wrote that you wanted to tell me that year.”
He nodded.
“You wrote that Mom thought I was already having a hard enough time.”
