Chapter 9 - THE LETTER HE WROTE TO ME
There was one final letter inside the cabinet.
Not from my mother.
From Thomas.
It was dated eight months before his death.
Before he contacted me.
He apparently wrote it, then could not send it.
Typical.
I read it in my condo alone.
Susan,
There is no version of this letter where I become the injured party.
I kept reading.
He wrote that he loved Anne when he married her.
Then became obsessed with becoming somebody important.
Marianne’s family represented access to a world he wanted.
He told himself Anne would be happier without the arguments.
Told himself six-year-old children adapted.
Told himself regular money was responsible fatherhood even when regular presence became inconvenient.
Then came the sentence I hated most because it was probably true.
Every year that I stayed away made returning require a confession about the year before, so I stayed away another year.
Cowardice compounding like interest.
He had received several of Mom’s letters personally.
Not all.
Enough.
He ignored them because Marianne threatened to leave if he “reopened the first family.”
Thomas chose his marriage.
Again.
And again.
Later, after Caroline was older, Marianne’s threat mattered less.
By then his shame did the work for her.
He searched my name occasionally.
Knew where I went to college.
Knew when Mom died.
Knew where I worked.
He never contacted me.
That information hurt differently from everything else.
He had watched from a distance.
Not closely enough to be a father.
Closely enough to know I existed.
At the end, he wrote:
The money I have arranged for you is not compensation for being six years old and waiting by the window. There is no amount for that. It is only the correction of money that should already have been yours and a share of what remains because you are my daughter whether I behaved like your father or not.
Then:
Do not forgive me because I am dead.
I cried after that.
Not because I forgave him.
Because he finally stopped asking me to.
Most apologies hide a request.
Please make me feel less guilty.
Please tell me I wasn’t that bad.
Please accept the explanation so I can keep my image of myself.
Thomas’s last letter contained none of that.
He did not ask for absolution.
He gave me facts.
Late.
Insufficient.
May you like
True.
That was all he had left.
