Chapter 6 - Fifty Years Inside an Envelope
Daniel did not invite Marco inside.
Marco respected him for that.
They stood beside the driveway under a porch light while evening settled over the neighborhood.
Daniel looked at the envelope again.
“You’re serious.”
“Yes.”
“My biological mother is alive?”
“Yes.”
“How old?”
“Seventy-six.”
“Where?”
“Providence.”
Daniel laughed once, but there was no humor in it.
“Of course.”
Marco frowned.
“What?”
“I was born in Rhode Island.”
“You knew?”
“My parents told me that much.”
Daniel folded his arms.
“They never knew who my birth mother was. Or they said they didn’t.”
“They knew.”
Daniel’s expression hardened.
Marco continued before anger could fill the gap.
“They promised not to tell you unless Elena chose to contact you.”
“So everybody decided for me.”
Marco nodded.
“Yes.”
The answer surprised Daniel.
“You’re not going to defend them?”
“I spent the last week being angry about the same thing.”
Daniel looked at him.
“You only found out last week?”
“Yes.”
“That you had a brother?”
“Yes.”
Daniel studied Marco’s face as though checking for deception.
“Who told you?”
“An eighty-one-year-old woman across the hall from my mother.”
Daniel blinked.
“What?”
Marco almost smiled.
“Rose Brennan.”
Daniel’s face changed immediately.
“Aunt Rose?”
“You know her.”
“Of course I know her.”
Daniel stared.
“She’s alive?”
“Yes.”
“I haven’t seen her in years.”
“She helped arrange your adoption.”
Daniel sat down on the low brick wall beside the driveway.
Marco stayed standing.
Daniel looked at the house.
“Katherine is going to think I’m insane.”
“Your wife?”
“Yes.”
Marco nodded.
“I saw the wedding notice.”
Daniel’s head snapped toward him.
“You’ve been investigating me.”
“My mother kept records.”
“What kind of records?”
“Photographs. Newspaper clippings. Graduation announcements.”
Daniel’s face tightened.
“She watched me?”
“From a distance.”
“For how long?”
“Most of your life.”
Daniel stood again.
“That’s disturbing.”
Marco nodded.
“It can feel that way.”
“You agree?”
“I found the box. I had the same reaction.”
Daniel paced two steps.
“So she gave me away, never contacted me, but collected photographs?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“That’s what the letter explains.”
Daniel looked at the envelope.
“You read it?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“It isn’t mine.”
That answer seemed to land somewhere.
Daniel reached for the letter.
Marco released it.
The envelope trembled slightly in Daniel’s hand.
He looked at the handwriting.
“For Daniel.”
“Yes.”
“She knew my name?”
“Rose told her.”
Daniel stared at the paper.
“Does she want to meet me?”
Marco had expected the question.
He had rehearsed answers.
None sounded right now.
“She wants you to choose.”
“That’s convenient.”
Marco nodded.
“Yes.”
Daniel looked surprised.
“You keep agreeing with me.”
“I’m not here to sell you my mother.”
Daniel said nothing.
“She hurt you,” Marco continued. “She hurt me too.”
Daniel looked at him.
“Then why are you here?”
“Because she also did something I’m not sure I would have been strong enough to do.”
Daniel waited.
Marco told him.
Not everything.
Enough.
Thomas Moretti.
The DeLucas.
The rivalry.
The pregnancy.
Two families talking about an unborn child as though he belonged to them.
Elena disappearing.
Rose helping.
Margaret and her husband.
Daniel listened without interrupting.
When Marco finished, Daniel looked toward his quiet street.
“This sounds like something from another century.”
“It almost was.”
“And she thought giving me away would protect me.”
“Yes.”
“From what?”
“From becoming somebody before you were old enough to decide who you wanted to be.”
Daniel looked at Marco.
“And you?”
“What about me?”
“Did you get to decide?”
Marco laughed softly.
“No.”
Daniel understood more from that one word than Marco expected.
The porch door opened.
A woman in her fifties stepped outside.
“Dan?”
Daniel turned.
“I’m okay.”
She looked at Marco.
“You sure?”
“Yeah.”
Her eyes stayed on Marco.
Daniel held up the envelope.
“I need a minute.”
She nodded slowly and went back inside.
“That’s Katherine,” Daniel said.
“I figured.”
Daniel looked at the letter.
“My parents were good people.”
“Rose said they were.”
“They never made me feel adopted.”
Marco nodded.
“That was what Elena wanted.”
Daniel’s jaw tightened.
“Stop saying it like that.”
Marco went silent.
Daniel ran a hand through his hair.
“I’m sorry.”
“You don’t have to be.”
“No, I do.”
He looked at the envelope.
“I don’t know what I’m supposed to feel.”
“You don’t have to know tonight.”
Daniel laughed bitterly.
“Did she teach you to talk like that?”
“No. She taught me the opposite.”
That earned the smallest smile.
Marco took a step backward.
“I should go.”
Daniel looked at him.
“That’s it?”
“What else should I do?”
“I don’t know.”
“Neither do I.”
Marco reached into his pocket and took out a card.
His phone number.
He placed it on the wall.
“You don’t owe us anything.”
Daniel stared at the card.
“No meeting. No forgiveness. No relationship.”
Marco looked toward the house.
“You have a life. Keep it.”
Daniel’s eyes moved back to him.
“What if I want answers?”
“Then call.”
“And if I don’t?”
Marco swallowed.
“Then I won’t come back.”
Daniel held the letter tighter.
Marco walked to his car.
Behind him, Daniel said, “Marco.”
He turned.
Daniel looked exhausted.
“Does she regret it?”
Marco thought about the cedar box.
The photographs.
The labels.
His daughter.
His son.
Family Christmas.
“Yes.”
Daniel nodded.
“Does she think she made the wrong choice?”
Marco thought longer.
“No.”
Daniel’s expression shifted.
Marco continued.
“She thinks she hurt you. She knows that.”
He looked at the envelope.
“But she believes you got a life you might not have had otherwise.”
Daniel looked down.
Marco got into the car.
He drove away without looking in the mirror.
Back in Providence, Elena was awake when Marco called.
“You saw him.”
It was not a question.
“Yes.”
Silence.
“How?”
“Normal.”
Elena breathed out.
“What does that mean?”
“He teaches. He has a wife. A yellow dog.”
Marco heard something between a laugh and a sob.
“Did you give him the letter?”
“Yes.”
Another silence.
“Did he open it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did he ask about me?”
“Yes.”
Elena waited.
Marco did not make her ask twice.
“He asked if you regret it.”
Elena’s breath caught.
“What did you tell him?”
“The truth.”
“That I do?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“That you still think he had a better chance away from us.”
Elena was silent a long time.
“Was that cruel?”
“No.”
Marco looked out his study window.
“It was honest.”
He heard Elena exhale.
“Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me yet.”
“Why?”
“Because he might never call.”
“I know.”
Marco paused.
“Are you okay with that?”
“No.”
The answer came instantly.
Then Elena added, “But I will be.”
Marco closed his eyes.
He understood.
Three days passed.
No call.
A week.
Nothing.
Marco did not contact Daniel.
Elena asked once.
Then she stopped.
Rose asked every day.
By the second week, Marco began to believe Daniel had thrown the letter away.
He didn’t blame him.
Then, on a Thursday afternoon, his phone rang.
Connecticut area code.
Marco stared at the screen for two rings before answering.
“Hello?”
Silence.
Then Daniel’s voice.
“I opened it.”
Marco sat down.
He said nothing.
Daniel continued.
“She wrote five pages.”
Marco smiled faintly.
“That sounds like her.”
“She was nineteen.”
“Yes.”
“Terrified.”
“Yes.”
Another pause.
“There’s a line in it.”
Marco waited.
Daniel’s voice changed.
“She wrote, ‘I am not leaving because I want a life without you. I am leaving because I want you to have one that doesn’t belong to any of us.’”
Marco closed his eyes.
Daniel took a breath.
“I don’t know what to do with that.”
“You don’t have to do anything.”
“She says that too.”
Marco almost laughed.
“Definitely her.”
Daniel was quiet.
Then he asked, “Is she sick?”
“Old.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
Marco thought about Elena.
“She’s not dying today.”
“Marco.”
“She’s slowing down.”
Daniel said nothing.
Marco could hear traffic on Daniel’s end.
Finally Daniel said, “I’m not ready to meet her.”
“I understand.”
“I might never be.”
“I understand that too.”
Another pause.
“But I want to send something.”
Marco looked toward the nursing home across the city as if he could see Elena through walls and distance.
“What?”
May you like
Daniel answered.
“A picture.”
