Chapter 6 - The First Letter Almost Reached Elliot
The earliest envelope hidden inside the bookcase was different from the others.
No birthday number.
No age.
Only:
Susan and Mark — Please Read
Harrison opened it with Camille’s permission.
The letter had been written six weeks after the birth.
Camille apologized for contacting the Whitakers so soon. She said she understood they had welcomed Elliot into their home and that she did not want to frighten them.
Then she wrote:
I need you to know I did not give him away because I did not love him. I signed because I believed my father could have Harper removed too. If you cannot let me see Elliot, please at least tell him someday that I wanted him.
Harper stopped reading.
Her anger at Camille did not disappear.
But its shape changed.
Camille had not gone fifteen years without trying.
She had tried before Harper could even lift her own head.
Harrison checked the envelope.
It had been opened.
Not by the Whitakers.
The fold marks showed someone had read it and resealed it.
Roland admitted it.
“I stopped it.”
Harper stared.
“Why?”
“Because Susan called me after Camille found their address.”
There it was.
The letter had nearly reached them.
Susan had become alarmed.
Not because Camille was dangerous.
Because Susan suddenly realized the adoption story she had been given might not be complete.
“She asked whether Camille was changing her mind,” Roland said. “I told her postpartum grief was making Camille unstable.”
Camille closed her eyes.
“You told them I was crazy.”
“I told them contact would hurt everyone.”
“Everyone?”
Roland’s voice rose.
“They had bonded with him! They had rearranged their entire lives! What did you want me to do—rip him away six weeks later?”
Camille answered:
“Tell the truth.”
That was the choice Roland never seemed able to make when truth created pain.
He preferred a clean lie to a difficult conversation.
Harper looked through the remaining letters.
Every year, Camille wrote something.
At age three, she described Harper learning to ride a scooter and wondered whether Elliot liked wheels too.
At six, she wrote about Harper losing her first tooth.
At nine, she enclosed half of a photograph of the lakeside dock.
At thirteen, she wrote:
I don’t know your name anymore. I hope someone says it with love.
Harper could not finish that one.
She looked at her mother.
“You kept writing even though you knew Grandpa stopped them?”
“I didn’t know at first. Then I suspected. Then I started hiding copies.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Camille’s answer took a long time.
“Because every year I waited made the confession uglier.”
That was painfully believable.
Guilt did not always make people tell the truth.
Sometimes it made the truth harder to begin.
Harper held the hospital wristband in one hand and the letter in the other.
Then she asked Harrison:
“Can we find him?”
May you like
Harrison’s expression softened.
“I think we already have.”
