Chapter 6 - THE LETTERS ETHAN NEVER GOT
I did not give Ethan the letters immediately.
He was eight.
He had already learned in one afternoon that adults had built a wall between him and the woman who gave birth to him.
He did not need every brick thrown at his feet.
Patricia, the attorney, told us to scan everything first.
Then consult a child therapist.
Then decide how to approach it in a way that centered Ethan, not adult guilt.
Andrew wanted to open the letters that night.
I said no.
He looked hurt.
I did not care.
“For once,” I said, “Ethan’s truth doesn’t get processed according to your panic.”
That sentence landed.
He nodded.
The legal review began with the papers in the box.
The custody documents were incomplete.
Some appeared to be copies.
Some had signatures that did not match each other.
One form claimed Jenna had voluntarily ceased contact.
But the envelopes proved she had tried to contact Ethan after that date.
Martha had kept them.
Three letters were only the beginning.
Patricia found references to returned mail.
A closed email account.
A phone number changed after Martha “helped” Andrew switch carriers.
Every path Jenna used had been redirected, discouraged, or quietly buried.
Andrew kept saying:
“I didn’t know all of it.”
Eventually I snapped.
“You knew enough to stop saying she abandoned him.”
He went silent.
That was the sentence that stayed between us.
Not because I wanted to punish him.
Because truth has a weight, and for years Andrew had placed all of it on a woman who was not in the room to defend herself.
We found Jenna through Patricia’s investigator.
She lived in Milwaukee.
Married now.
Sober for six years.
Working as a dental assistant.
She had a framed photo of Ethan at age one on her mantel.
The only photo she had been allowed to keep.
When Patricia contacted her, Jenna cried so hard she could barely speak.
Her first question was not about Andrew.
Not about Martha.
Not about legal rights.
It was:
“Does Ethan think I left him?”
I had to leave the room when Patricia told me that.
Because yes.
May you like
He did.
And we had helped him believe it.
