Chapter 39 - The Letter Sienna Wrote
Months later, Sienna gave me a letter.
“For when you miss Dad.”
I opened it.
It wasn't from him.
It was from her.
She had written about the night our mother slapped me.
About how she had stood there and done nothing.
About the shame she carried afterward.
Then she wrote:
I used to think you were stronger because Dad chose you.
Now I understand that he didn't choose you because you were stronger.
He trusted you because you were willing to carry responsibility.
I stopped reading.
My eyes filled with tears.
Sienna continued:
I spent years thinking inheritance meant getting what someone else had built.
You taught me it can also mean accepting what someone else expects you to protect.
At the bottom she had written:
I'm proud to be your sister.
I folded the letter.
Then I walked into the next room.
Sienna was waiting.
I hugged her.
No words.
We didn't need them.
For the first time since our father's death, I felt that our family wasn't merely surviving what our mother had done.
We were becoming something separate from her.
Something healthier.
May you like
Something ours.
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