Rebecca's Letter
Chapter 15 - Rebecca's Letter
The letter had never been mailed.
Rachel found it among her mother's belongings years earlier but never understood who Lily was.
Now she did.
Ethan opened it carefully.
Rebecca wrote that she had always known Thomas loved someone before her.
She had accepted that.
People did not arrive in marriage without histories.
But shortly before Rebecca became ill, Margaret accidentally revealed Lily's full name.
Rebecca tried to locate her.
She failed.
The letter was her apology to a woman she had never met.
I don't know what happened between you and Thomas. But I know enough to understand that some part of him has been waiting for an answer his entire adult life.
Thomas could barely finish reading.
Rachel sat beside him.
“My mom wasn't afraid of the truth.”
Thomas looked at his daughter.
“No.”
“She was better than all of us.”
Thomas smiled sadly.
“Yes.”
Ethan handed the letter back.
Rachel shook her head.
“Keep it.”
“Why?”
“Because I think my mother wrote it for both families.”
That afternoon, Rachel and Ethan talked alone.
They discovered they had almost nothing in common.
Rachel hated baseball.
Ethan hated expensive coffee.
Rachel planned everything.
Ethan barely knew where he would be next month.
But when Rachel showed him photographs of Thomas as a young man, Ethan laughed.
“I do look like him.”
Rachel smiled.
“Unfortunately.”
It was the first moment they felt like siblings.
Then Rachel asked what Ethan planned to do.
He admitted he had been accepted into a mechanical engineering program before Lily became sick.
He never enrolled.
He spent the year caring for her.
Thomas overheard.
“I can help with tuition.”
Ethan immediately shook his head.
“No.”
Thomas looked hurt.
Ethan continued.
“I'll accept help finding work.”
Thomas nodded.
“That I can do.”
“No special treatment.”
“Understood.”
Marisol smiled from the doorway.
For the first time, the family was learning the difference between rescuing Ethan and respecting him.
But two days later, Thomas received devastating news.
Margaret had suffered a stroke.
May you like
And before losing consciousness, she had asked for only one person.
Ethan.
