Chapter 8 - LETTERS FROM A GHOST
We read Rebecca's letters at the kitchen table until sunrise.
Some contained only a sentence or two, written in an uneven hand.
Others described birthdays she imagined and little dresses she hoped the girls would wear.
To Emma, she wrote about the gentleness she remembered in her infant face.
To Sophie, she wrote that courage meant protecting people, not pretending never to be afraid.
To Lily, she wrote that quiet people could change the world by refusing to look away.
And to me, she wrote the sentence that nearly broke me.
Thank you for being their mother while I fight to be allowed to be theirs.
I read it aloud twice.
Then I covered my mouth and wept.
All those years I had believed Rebecca was gone.
She had spent at least part of them believing I had deliberately ignored her.
A letter from the year the girls turned twelve said she had heard I refused to accept further contact.
I recognized my mother's cruelty in the neat words of that lie.
The letters contained clues as well as grief.
Several mentioned a woman named Celia who helped Rebecca send mail and a greenhouse where she worked under supervision.
The most recent letter was dated fourteen months earlier.
“I am no longer at the place they kept me,” it said.
“But freedom is not the same thing as being safe.”
Marisol contacted the local authorities with the letters and requested an investigation into the financial transfers.
She also found Celia Ortiz, now a retired social worker.
Celia agreed to speak on video.
Before the call connected, Sophie received an email from the university.
Her final degree certification had been placed under review because of an anonymous allegation concerning fraudulent scholarship documents.
Emma received an identical notice.
So did Lily.
Someone was reaching for the one triumph the girls had worked to earn honestly.
Sophie crumpled the printout.
“He wants us ashamed and frightened.”
“No,” Lily replied, watching the blank screen on the computer.
“He wants us to stop looking.”
Celia's face appeared.
May you like
She looked at us, began to cry, and whispered, “Before we talk, you need to know that Rebecca has a son.”
