She nodded. “As many as I could find. I found them after our mother died last winter.”
For illustrative purposes only
We followed her to the attic—hot, dusty, filled with the smell of old paper.
She knelt by a storage bin and lifted the lid.
Letters.
Stacks of them. Birthday cards. Returned envelopes with my name written in Andrew’s handwriting.
My legs gave out. I sank to the floor.
Leo dropped beside me.
Gwen handed me the first envelope carefully.
“Start there.”
I opened it.
“Heather,
I know this looks bad. Please don’t believe I left you. I’m trying to come back. I promise.
— A.”
The air left my lungs.
I grabbed another.
“I don’t know if you hate me. My mother says you do. I don’t believe her, but I don’t know how else to reach you.”
“Oh no…” I whispered.
“He thought I hated him,” I said.
Gwen exhaled shakily. “She lied to both of you.”
I tore open another.
“If it’s a boy, I hope he laughs like you do when you’re really happy.”
My hand flew to my mouth.
Leo stared. “He wrote that?”
I nodded and handed him a card.
“Read it.”
He opened it.
“To my child,
I don’t know if you’ll ever see this. But if your mom tells you I loved her, believe that with your whole heart.”
No one spoke.
Then Leo asked, “You knew about this?”
“I didn’t know about the letters,” Gwen said. “I was away. But Andrew called me—he told me everything. He wanted to come back.”
“I just wanted him to stay…” I whispered.
“I know,” she said. “But our mother made sure that never happened.”
Leo looked down at the box.
“So… he didn’t walk away?”
“No,” Gwen said softly. “He didn’t.”
Then she added:
“Three years ago, he died. A truck ran a red light.”
Leo’s voice broke. “My dad’s really gone?”
“Yes.”
She handed me his old school photo—and the pregnancy test I had given him all those years ago.
“He kept everything,” she said. “He was going to try again.”
Later, outside, after telling my parents everything, my dad cleared his throat.
“Let’s get you home, kid.”
On the drive back, Leo fell asleep with one hand resting on the box.
At a red light, I looked over at him—and finally understood.
For eighteen years, I thought I was the girl Andrew ran from.
I wasn’t.
I was the girl he loved.
The girl he kept writing to—again and again—
Until he no longer could.
