I stood up. Caleb looked up when I passed through the living room.
“Mom? Why were you yelling?”
“I dropped something,” I said quickly. “Stay with your siblings.”
The attic ladder creaked when I pulled it down. Daniel had insisted on reorganizing the attic himself during his last good month. At that moment, I wondered what he’d been hiding.
I searched for an hour until I reached the back wall.
There sat a cedar chest I hadn’t opened in years.
I wondered what he’d been hiding.
The small key slid into the lock. I turned it.
Inside were envelopes bundled with twine, a small stack of bank receipts, and something wrapped in tissue paper.
My hands trembled as I unwrapped it.
It was a newborn hospital bracelet. It was pink. The date printed on it made my knees weaken. It was from eight years earlier. The exact month Daniel and I had separated for three months after one of our worst fights.
“No,” I breathed. “No, no, no.”
It was a newborn hospital bracelet. It was pink.
I checked the name. Ava.
I swallowed hard and reached for the stack of envelopes.
The first one I opened wasn’t in Daniel’s handwriting.
“Daniel,
I can’t keep doing this halfway. Ava is getting older. She asks why you don’t stay. I don’t know what to tell her anymore. I need you to choose. Please don’t make me raise her alone while you go back to your real life.
C.”
I checked the name.
I opened another.
“Daniel,
I know you think you’re protecting everyone, but you’re hurting us. If you loved me, you wouldn’t keep going back. Leave her. Be with us. Ava deserves that. Please.”
