He untied the blue ribbon.
Every envelope had the same name written across the front.
Mr. Harris.
He looked at me.
“That’s me.”
There were six letters.
All written in Isabella’s handwriting.
None had stamps.
None had ever been mailed.
Mr. Harris opened the first one.
Sophie leaned against me while he read silently.
Halfway through the page, he stopped.
“What does it say?” I asked.
He swallowed.
“She wrote this after she left home.”
Then he read one line aloud.
“I don’t know if you still hate me.”
Mr. Harris lowered the letter.
“I didn’t hate her.”
Nobody spoke.
“I was sixteen,” he said. “She and Dad had this terrible argument. She packed a bag.”
Get Parenting Tips
He stared down at the page.
“I was angry because she was leaving.”
His voice weakened.
“The last thing I said to her was, ‘Fine. Go.’”
He looked away.
“I waited for her to call me.”
I looked at the unopened letters.
“And she thought you didn’t want her to.”
He nodded.
The letters covered years.
Isabella wrote about getting married.
Missing home.
Wondering whether her little brother had graduated.
Whether he was happy.
Whether he still thought about her.
Then we reached one written after Sophie’s birth.
Mr. Harris unfolded it with shaking hands.
A small photograph slipped to the floor.
Edit Photos
Sophie picked it up.
Isabella was lying in a hospital bed.
Newborn Sophie was asleep against her chest.
Mr. Harris kept reading.
Then he made a sound that didn’t sound like crying exactly.
More like something inside him had finally broken open.
“What?” Sophie asked.
He handed me the letter.
Near the bottom was a line about her.
“If you ever meet her, her name is Sophie. She has your ridiculous dimple when she smiles.”
