Chapter 17 - The Box Comes Back
Almost a year after I left Austin, a package arrived.
Plain cardboard.
My name written across the top.
OLIVIA
For a second, I laughed at the symmetry.
Inside was the lake photograph.
Dad and me.
The same picture I had left for him.
There was also a letter.
He had mailed it from prison.
You gave me this photograph because I think you wanted me to remember who I was before fear became the way I ran our family.
I sat down.
I am sending it back because you should keep proof that the good memories were real too. I do not deserve ownership of every version of our past.
I cried then.
Not for the father I had lost.
For the father he might finally be becoming.
The letter ended:
I hope Maine is peaceful. Your mother always loved it there.
No demand.
No guilt.
No request.
Just goodbye.
Or maybe not goodbye.
Maybe simply space.
I placed the photograph beside Mom’s on the mantel.
Both parents.
Both complicated.
May you like
Both part of me.
Neither controlling me anymore.
