The Locket That Called Her Mother

Chapter 16 - Daniel’s Twenty-Two Letters

Daniel gave Mara the box of letters on her twenty-third birthday.

He did not call it a gift.

The box held twenty-two envelopes, one written each year after her birth. Some were addressed to Victoria. Some to “my daughter, wherever you are.” Most had been returned unopened or never mailed.

Mara opened the first.

Daniel wrote about the hospital. He believed Victoria had taken the baby overseas. He promised to keep looking until continuing to search endangered his work, then promised to continue anyway.

The fifth letter described teaching himself how to braid hair using yarn because he imagined having a daughter.

The ninth admitted he had begun to doubt his own memories.

The fourteenth apologized for becoming bitter.

The twenty-second said: If you are alive, I hope the people who found you made you feel chosen.

Mara stopped reading.

Daniel sat across from her in Rose’s old kitchen chair.

“She did,” Mara said.

He nodded, eyes wet.

“I’m glad.”

“Are you?”

“Yes.” He took a breath. “And jealous. Both can be true.”

Mara almost smiled.

“That is the first honest parent answer I’ve heard.”

They ate takeout on the floor because the apartment table had been packed for Mara’s move. Daniel told stories about Victoria before the Langford name hardened around her. Victoria arrived later with a grocery-store cake and no staff.

The three of them sat awkwardly among boxes.

There was no instant family.

No perfect photograph.

Victoria asked too many careful questions. Daniel made one bad joke. Mara became irritated when both watched her blow out candles as if witnessing a miracle.

Then the smoke alarm went off because the cake box touched the stove burner.

They laughed.

It was small.