Chapter 15 - Mom's Last Christmas Letter
The paper smelled faintly of cedar from Grandma's closet. My name looked exactly the way I remembered it on birthday cards: the T a little too tall, the final a leaning forward.
I unfolded the letter with trembling hands.
Mom had written it during the final winter of her illness. She told me that grief could make a place feel sacred, but a place was not a person. She hoped I would keep baking, if I loved it, and leave if I didn't. She asked me not to confuse giving up a building with losing her.
Near the bottom, she wrote: Your father is a good man when he is brave. Sometimes he'll need reminding that being kind and being brave are not the same thing.
I laughed through tears.
"That sounds like her," Grandma said.
"She knew."
"She knew him. Not what he'd do afterward."
The last line was the one that stayed with me: Make a home where the door opens from both sides.
I took the little red gingerbread door from my coat pocket and laid it beside the letter. For days I'd been holding it as though it were the only surviving piece of Mom. Now I understood she had left me much more than an object.
Dad arrived at the clinic carrying a bag with Grandma's slippers. He stopped when he saw the letter.
"She wrote to you?" he asked.
"She did."
He read only the line I offered. Then he sat beside Grandma and began to cry quietly.
"I'm sorry, Mom," he said. "I let this get out of hand."
Grandma didn't pat his shoulder. "You let people get hurt, Daniel. That's what needs fixing."
"I'll talk to the police," he said. "And the bank. I'll give them every statement, even the ones that make me look bad."
I studied him, searching for the familiar retreat. Instead, he pulled out his phone and called his own attorney.
As the nurse returned, Dad's screen lit up with a text from Corinne.
May you like
If you won't sign the Christmas Eve statement, I'll tell everyone what you did with Nora's last insurance check.
He went pale. I had never heard of an insurance check.
