Chapter 8
The officer came to the house that afternoon.
She took Peter’s account and asked me whether Celeste had tried to reach Lily. She had not, but I showed her the messages Celeste had sent me.
Most asked to talk.
The last said, You don’t know what Nora has kept from you.
I wanted to dismiss it. Celeste had lied before. Yet the words stayed with me.
After the officer left, I called Nora.
“Celeste says you’re keeping something from me,” I said.
Nora did not answer at once.
“There is something I haven’t told you,” she said.
I closed my eyes.
“Can you come over?”
She arrived an hour later with her walking boot and an envelope.
Lily was baking with Mrs. Flores, so Nora and I sat in Ruth’s old study.
“I should have given you this after Amelia died,” she said.
The envelope held a letter in Amelia’s handwriting.
I knew it immediately. Her capital D had a little loop she used to joke looked like a ribbon.
“When did she write it?”
“The week before she went into the hospital for the last time. She asked me to keep it until you were ready.”
“Why didn’t you give it to me?”
“At first, you could barely get through a day. Then I thought it was no longer my place to decide when you were ready. I was wrong to keep waiting.”
I opened the letter.
Amelia wrote about Lily’s laugh, Marcus and Lena’s kindness, and the way I used to make up stories at bedtime. She knew I was frightened of raising Lily alone.
You will make mistakes, she had written. Please don’t decide that means you should hand your place to someone else. Lily needs you, even on the days you feel lost.
I stopped reading because the words had blurred.
Nora sat quietly while I cried.
When I could speak, I asked, “Did Celeste know about this?”
“She found the envelope in my bag the night she locked me downstairs. I told her Amelia had written it for you. She opened it.”
“Did she read it?”
“Yes. She said Amelia had made it too hard for anyone else to love Lily.”
I held the letter against my chest.
Nora leaned forward.
“I kept a letter from you. I’m sorry. Celeste is trying to use that to make you doubt me, and I wanted you to hear it from me.”
“I wish you’d given it to me sooner.”
“I know.”
“I’m glad you brought it now.”
I finished reading before Lily came in. Amelia had written a few lines for her too, but she had asked me to share them when I felt Lily was ready.
That night, Lily and I sat on her bed with the green scarf between us.
“Mom wrote us a letter,” I said.
Lily sat up.
“Both of us?”
“Yes.”
I read Amelia’s words about the day Lily learned to whistle and the way she insisted every stuffed animal needed a blanket. Lily smiled at those parts.
Then I read: I hope you grow up knowing you can ask for help, say when you’re afraid, and trust that the people who love you will listen.
Lily reached for the page.
“Can we keep it in my room?”
“We’ll make a copy for your room. I want to keep the original safe.”
“Okay.”
She touched her mother’s writing gently.
“I asked for help when I heard Nora.”
“You did.”
“You listened.”
“I’m going to keep listening.”
The next morning, the police told me Celeste had been taken in for questioning. By afternoon, they had arrested her in connection with Nora’s confinement and the forged documents.
I sat at the kitchen table after the call, unable to move.
I had expected to feel certain once she was arrested. Instead, I thought of the first time she came to dinner after Amelia died. She had helped Lily cut her food and listened patiently to a story about a lost tooth.
Some of that care may have been real. It did not undo what she had done later.
Marcus came over when I called. He sat with me until Lily returned from school.
We told her, in simple words, that Celeste would not be coming to the house and that adults were handling the serious things she had done.
“Is Nora in trouble for keeping Mom’s letter?” Lily asked.
“Nora made a mistake by waiting,” I said. “She told me herself and said she was sorry. She didn’t deserve to be locked away.”
Lily considered that.
“Can people make mistakes and still be safe?”
“Yes. We look at what they did, whether they tell the truth, and what they do next.”
She nodded, then went to wash her hands before dinner.
That evening, I placed Amelia’s letter in a new folder. I put Lily’s copy on her bedside table.
May you like
I closed Ruth’s study and walked past the hallway.
For the first time, I did not stare at the rug.
