She wore jeans and an oversized sweatshirt, her hair pulled into a messy ponytail, dark roots showing through the dyed blond. Her phone was still in her hand, but it hung at her side instead of being held up like a shield.
“Can we talk?” she asked.
Her voice was tentative, fingers fidgeting with her keys.
A dozen responses flickered through my mind—sarcastic, bitter, dismissive. Almost all of them had sharp edges.
Instead, I set the brush down on the tray and wiped my hands on the rag.
“Sure,” I said. “Come sit.”
I gestured toward the porch swing. Mom had installed it when I was twelve after I’d declared that every porch in every movie ever had a swing and it was an injustice we didn’t. Dad had grumbled about chains and support beams; Mom had arrived the next weekend with brackets, screws, and an air of cheerful determination. By Sunday afternoon, we had a swing.
Lily and I sat on it now, the chains creaking softly as we settled into the worn cushions. The ocean stretched out in front of us, shimmering under a sky so clear it hurt.
For a few long seconds, we just listened to the waves.
Lily seemed to gather herself. Then she reached into her bag and pulled out a stack of papers, edges crumpled, some of them still bearing faint fold lines.
“I found these in Mom’s—Victoria’s—desk,” she said, stumbling over the name.
My heart gave a small, wary lurch. Papers hidden in a desk, coming from Victoria’s office, rarely meant anything good.
But when she handed them to me, my breath caught.
I recognized the handwriting instantly.
Mom’s.
“They’re letters your mom wrote to you before she died,” Lily said softly. “Victoria never gave them to you.”
My fingers trembled as I took the stack, the paper soft and thinned from being handled. The first envelope had my name written on the front, the ink slightly smudged from what looked like a tear.
And inside—inside was Mom’s voice, captured in loops and lines.
I blinked rapidly, fighting the burn of tears. “Why are you giving them to me now?”
Lily stared out at the water. “Because I’m starting to realize that maybe everything I thought I knew about our family isn’t exactly true.”
A gull cried overhead, wheeling in a lazy arc.