Chapter 5 - The Letters Never Reached His Desk
The oldest envelope was dated two weeks after Lucia’s secret visit.
The newest was only four months old.
Alejandro sat alone for nearly twenty minutes before opening the first.
He had spent his life believing action was strength.
Now opening paper required more courage than any confrontation he could remember.
Lucia wrote:
Dad,
I came home last month and left again without seeing you. Isabel told me that was what you wanted. I don’t know whether to believe her, but I’m trying to respect the life you’ve built.
Alejandro stopped.
Marianne sat quietly across the room.
Sophie had been taken for medical examination and was now resting safely with another trusted caregiver.
No child needed to watch this.
Alejandro continued.
Lucia apologized for the final argument eight years earlier.
Not for leaving.
For the words she used.
She told him:
You didn’t know how to love me without trying to solve me.
He had hated that sentence.
Now she wrote:
I still think it was true. I also know I used your love as something to push against because I didn’t know how to become my own person while standing next to someone as strong as you.
Alejandro closed his eyes.
No villain.
No perfect daughter.
A broken relationship with responsibility on both sides.
The second letter came a year later.
She had remarried.
The third said the marriage ended.
The fourth described a job she loved.
The fifth contained only three lines:
I saw your foundation award online. You looked older. I hated that I wasn’t there. I don’t know if you hate that too.
The sixth was written after Alejandro married Isabel.
Lucia had seen photographs.
She wrote:
I hope she makes you happy. I also hope she told you I came.
Alejandro pressed his fist against his mouth.
She knew.
Not with certainty.
Enough to wonder.
The newest letter was different.
Dad,
I’m done writing through Isabel.
That sentence changed everything.
She had not simply mailed the letters to the mansion.
She had been sending them through Isabel directly.
Because after the first visit, Isabel contacted her.
Not to apologize.
To manage the communication.
Isabel told Lucia that Alejandro could not emotionally handle direct contact yet but she would deliver letters when the timing was right.
Lucia believed her.
For six years.
The final paragraph read:
I asked her last month whether you ever read any of these. She stopped answering. So I’m sending one final letter to the mansion itself. If you receive it, call me. If you don’t, then I’ll finally accept what she has told me all these years.
Alejandro looked at the envelope.
Four months ago.
It had reached the mansion.
Someone removed it before it reached him.
Marianne whispered:
“How?”
That question hurt.
Mail entered the estate through a small household office.
Marianne handled some deliveries.
Isabel handled others.
Staff followed standing instructions:
Anything handwritten and personal for Alejandro went first to his private tray.
Unless marked from certain senders.
Isabel had added Lucia’s current surname to a “screen privately” list years earlier.
Nobody questioned it because Isabel said Lucia had asked for privacy.
A lie disguised as respect.
Alejandro looked toward the corridor where Isabel remained under supervision.
May you like
She had not needed to forge a single letter.
She only controlled whether truth reached its destination.
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