Chapter 2 - The Letter From a Woman I Buried in My Heart
I had imagined seeing Vanessa again a thousand times.
Sometimes I imagined her walking through a crowded airport.
Sometimes she appeared in my dreams, holding a little girl by the hand.
Other times, I imagined meeting her somewhere ordinary.
A grocery store.
A sidewalk.
A church parking lot.
But I had never imagined her daughter standing on my porch twenty-two years later, carrying a letter that looked as though it had been written yesterday.
I stared at the envelope.
"Nia, where is Vanessa?"
Her expression changed.
The baby began fussing.
Jordan gently touched her arm.
"Nia, you don't have to—"
"My mother died three weeks ago," she whispered.
I felt the air leave my lungs.
Died.
Vanessa was dead.
For twenty-two years, I had imagined asking her why she left.
Now I would never hear the answer from her lips.
I leaned against the doorframe.
Claire stepped beside me.
"Arthur, sit down."
I barely heard her.
"How?"
Nia wiped her cheek.
"Cancer."
The word hit me like a fist.
"She was sick for almost two years."
I closed my eyes.
"Did she suffer?"
Nia nodded.
"At the end."
I looked at the young woman standing before me.
My possible daughter.
A young mother.
A stranger.
And someone who had just lost the only parent she knew.
For the first time since opening the door, I noticed how exhausted she looked.
Her cheeks were pale.
There were dark circles beneath her eyes.
The newborn in her arms couldn't have been more than a few weeks old.
I had been standing there shouting at her.
Shame burned through me.
"Come inside," I said quietly.
Nia hesitated.
I stepped aside.
"Please."
Jordan guided her into the living room.
Claire brought a chair and a glass of water.
Nia sat carefully, keeping the baby against her chest.
I remained standing.
I couldn't stop staring at the envelope.
Finally, I opened it.
Inside were three folded pages.
The first line made my hands tremble.
Arthur,
If you're reading this, then I am gone, and our daughter has finally found you.
Our daughter.
I read those words again.
And again.
My eyes blurred.
Vanessa continued.
She wrote that she had never stopped loving me.
She wrote that leaving had been the hardest decision of her life.
Then came a sentence that made my blood run cold.
I did not leave because I stopped loving you. I left because someone made me believe you wanted us gone.
I stopped reading.
"What?"
Claire looked up.
"Arthur?"
I held the letter tighter.
Vanessa explained that shortly after Nia's birth, she received documents claiming I had arranged for her to be paid to disappear.
There had been threats.
Phone calls.
Letters.
Someone told her I planned to take the baby away.
She said she had been frightened.
Young.
Alone.
And desperate to protect our daughter.
I shook my head.
"That's not true."
Nia looked at me.
"What isn't?"
I raised the letter.
"Your mother says I wanted her to leave."
She lowered her eyes.
"She believed it for years."
"I never wanted that!"
My voice broke.
I sat down.
I remembered Vanessa crying in our tiny apartment.
We were young then.
I was twenty-nine.
She was twenty-one.
We had little money.
But we were excited about the baby.
I remembered painting a small nursery yellow.
I remembered placing a wooden crib beside the window.
I remembered Vanessa laughing because I assembled it backward.
Then, three weeks after our daughter was born, Vanessa disappeared.
The apartment was empty when I returned from work.
Her clothes were gone.
The baby's blankets were missing.
There was no note.
I reported them missing.
I called everyone we knew.
I searched for months.
Eventually, investigators told me that Vanessa appeared to have left voluntarily.
I was devastated.
Then Claire entered my life two years later.
She helped me survive.
She listened when I spoke about Vanessa.
She comforted me when I cried over the daughter I had lost.
At least, that was what I remembered.
I continued reading.
Vanessa wrote that she eventually discovered some of the documents were false.
But by then, she had moved across the country.
She had changed her name.
She was terrified that contacting me might reopen the threats.
She admitted she had made mistakes.
Terrible mistakes.
And she begged me not to punish Nia for them.
The last paragraph made me cry.
Arthur, our daughter has your eyes. She has your stubborn heart. I know I stole years from both of you, even though I believed I was saving her. Please love her if she comes to you. She deserves to know the father I remember.
I lowered the pages.
Nia was watching me.
Tears rolled down her cheeks.
"Is it true?" she whispered.
I looked at her.
"What?"
"That you wanted me?"
My heart shattered.
I stood and knelt in front of her.
"Nia, I searched for you."
Her lips trembled.
"For how long?"
"Years."
She began crying.
"My mother said you might hate me."
I shook my head.
"Never."
The baby stirred between us.
Nia adjusted the blanket.
I looked at the little girl's tiny face.
"What's her name?"
"Hope."
I smiled through my tears.
"Hope."
Nia nodded.
"Mom helped me choose it."
My throat tightened.
Then Jordan spoke.
"Dad, there's something else."
I turned toward him.
He looked uncomfortable.
"Nia didn't just come because of the letter."
Nia lowered her eyes.
I frowned.
"What do you mean?"
Jordan took a breath.
"She's been getting messages."
"What messages?"
Nia reached into her bag.
She pulled out her phone.
Her hands shook as she opened it.
Then she showed me a photograph.
It was a picture of my house.
Taken from across the street.
Underneath it was a message.
YOU SHOULD HAVE STAYED AWAY FROM ARTHUR.
I stared at the screen.
Another message followed.
YOUR MOTHER KEPT YOU SAFE BY HIDING THE TRUTH.
Nia's voice cracked.
"They started after Mom died."
I looked at Jordan.
"How did you meet her?"
"She contacted me online. She found my name through an old family photograph."
I frowned.
"What photograph?"
He hesitated.
Then he showed me.
It was a picture of me standing beside Claire.
Taken twenty years earlier.
At our wedding.
On the back of the photograph, someone had written a message.
KEEP HER AWAY FROM HIM.
I recognized the handwriting immediately.
Not Vanessa's.
Someone else's.
And when I looked across the room, I saw Claire staring at the photograph with an expression I had never seen before.
Fear.
Pure, unmistakable fear.
"Claire," I whispered.
She looked at me.
"Who wrote that?"
Her mouth opened.
Nothing came out.
Then Nia spoke.
"My mother told me there was one person I should never trust."
I turned toward her.
"Who?"
May you like
She looked directly at Claire.
"Your wife."
