I sat there on the floor, the bag in my lap, unable to make my fingers work. “Mom?” Mia stood in the doorway, a glass of water trembling in her hand. The color drained from her face the moment her eyes hit the bag. “Mia.” My voice did not sound like mine. “Why is your sister’s backpack in your closet?” The glass slipped a little in her grip. “Why is your sister’s backpack in your closet?” “Mia. Look at me. Why is this in your closet?” “I, I don’t know.” “You don’t know?” I held it up. “You don’t know how it got under your toys?” Her chin started to wobble. “Greta told me to hide it.”
The room tilted. “What did you just say?” “Greta told me to hide it.” “She told me to hide it from you. And to never, ever show you.” “Greta told you?” I was whispering now. “When? When did she tell you?” Mia stared at her socks. “Mia, when did your sister tell you to hide this?” “Before.”
“Before what?” “When? When did she tell you?” “Before she left.” I stared at her.
Then I unzipped the main pocket with shaking fingers.
“Oh my God, I knew this wasn’t an accident. HOW DARE GRETA DO THIS TO ME?!”
Inside, I found a jacket and two letters.
Both in Greta’s careful, looping handwriting.
One was addressed to me.
Inside, I found a jacket and two letters.
The other said Mia.
I picked up the second one.
The envelope was crisp. New.
The postmark on the small stamp in the corner was recent.
“Mia.”
“Mom, please.”
The envelope was crisp. New.
“All this time?”
“Mom.”
“Answer me.” I looked up at her. “Have you been in contact with her this entire time? Do you know where she is?”
“Mom, please don’t be mad.”
“Of course I’m mad!” Tears filled my eyes. “I’m heartbroken, and I’m confused because I don’t know how you and Greta could do this to Sophie and me.”
“All this time?”
She hung her head. “She made me promise.”
“For TWO YEARS, Mia?”
“She’s my sister.”
“I am your mother.”
“She said you’d be angry. She said you’d come and take her back and she didn’t want to come back.”
“Take her back from WHERE?”
“She made me promise.”
Mia pressed both hands against her mouth.
“Mia, take her back from WHERE?”
“I can’t say.”
“You can. You will.”
“She made me promise on her life, Mom. She said if I told you, she’d never write to me again.”
I sat back on my heels.
“Mia, take her back from WHERE?”
The backpack slid off my lap.
Two years of nights I had spent on the bathroom floor.
Two years of jumping every time the phone rang.
Two years of staring at strangers in grocery stores trying to find her face.
And my youngest daughter had known where Greta was all this time.
“How many letters, Mia?”
My youngest daughter had known where Greta was all this time.
“What?”
“How many letters has she sent you?”
Mia’s whole body started to shake. “A lot.”
“A lot is what?”
“Every month. Sometimes twice.”
I closed my eyes. “Where are they?”
“How many letters has she sent you?”
“In the box. Under the rabbit.”
I reached in.
Beneath the stuffed animals was a manila envelope. Heavy.
I pulled it free and let it fall onto the floor.
“Mom, please don’t read them. Please. She trusts me.”
“She trusted you to lie to me, Mia.”
Beneath the stuffed animals was a manila envelope.
“She trusted me to keep her safe.”
“Safe from whom?”
Mia looked at the floor. “From you.”
The word hit somewhere I did not know I had.
Soft and deep and final.
I picked up the first letter, the one with my name on it.
“She trusted me to keep her safe.”
The paper was older.
I turned it over in my hands. “Sit down, Mia.”
“Mom.”
“Sit down on the bed. You are going to be here while I read this.”
She sat on the bed, and I joined her.
I unfolded the page and began to read.
“You are going to be here while I read this.”
Greta’s letter was short, but every line cut.
You told me he was dead, Mom.
He’s not. He’s been looking for me for years.
My hands went numb. I read on.
I found the papers in your drawer last spring.
I wrote to him. He’s kind. He’s real.
And I couldn’t stay in a house built on a lie.
He’s been looking for me for years.
I let out a long breath and looked at Mia. “She’s with him? Your father?”
Mia nodded. “Two states away. Mom… why did you tell us he was dead?”
I pressed my palm to my mouth.
The words I had screamed two minutes ago, “How dare Greta do this to me,” curdled into something else.
How dare I.
“How dare Greta do this to me,”
How dare I tell a child her father was dead because I was angry.
How dare I let that lie become her childhood.
I picked up my phone and dialed the number tucked inside the letter.
It rang twice.
“Mom?”
Her voice was older.
How dare I let that lie become her childhood.
“Greta,” I whispered. “I’m so sorry.”
“You lied to me.”
“I know.”
“For ten years.”
“I know, baby.”
There was a long silence. Then, quietly, “Will you come? Just to talk?”
“You lied to me.”
“Tomorrow.”
***
We drove the next morning, all three of us.
Sophie held Mia’s hand the whole way.
At a small diner off the highway, Greta was waiting in a corner booth.
She did not stand.
She did not smile.
Greta was waiting in a corner booth.
She just looked at me, a stranger and my child both.
“Sit down, Mom,” she said.
And I sat, knowing the road back would be long, but knowing, for the first time in two years, it had finally begun.
