Chapter 5 - The Promise My Mother Broke
The letter was dated May 2012.
I had been ten.
Rebecca wrote that she had been sober for seven years.
She had finished graduate training in counseling.
She had remarried.
She worked with women rebuilding their lives after addiction.
And she had asked Diane for one thing.
Not custody.
Not money.
Not even immediate contact.
She asked Diane to tell me the truth before I turned eighteen.
The envelope was supposed to be given to me when I graduated from high school if Diane still hadn’t told me.
I was now finishing graduate school.
The letter had been hidden for twelve years.
Rebecca wrote:
I know I gave up the legal right to be your mother. I did not give up caring whether you knew I existed.
I stopped reading.
Diane’s face had gone gray.
“You had this.”
“I forgot it was in the folder.”
“No. You hid the folder.”
“I put it away.”
“For twelve years.”
“I couldn't hand a ten-year-old a letter like that.”
“I graduated high school six years ago.”
“I know.”
I stood.
Diane reached for me.
I moved away.
That hurt her.
Good.
For the first time, I wanted it to.
“What happened after she wrote this?”
Diane said nothing.
“Did Rebecca keep contacting you?”
“Yes.”
“How often?”
“A few times.”
The hesitation told me the number was larger.
“How often?”
“Every year.”
My knees weakened.
Every year.
Birthdays.
Christmas.
Graduation.
Rebecca had been reaching toward me while I grew up believing she was dead.
“Where are the letters?”
“I don't have them anymore.”
“You threw them away?”
“Some.”
I stared at her.
“What happened to the rest?”
Her jaw tightened.
“Your grandmother kept copies.”
Grandma Evelyn.
She had moved into assisted living in Rockville after a stroke two years earlier.
She had always been strangely emotional around my birthday.
She also used to tell me I had “Rebecca’s stubborn chin.”
I thought Rebecca was some distant cousin.
Now even my childhood memories contained clues.
Diane saw me reach for my purse.
“Don’t involve Grandma.”
“Why?”
“She’s eighty-one.”
“She’s eighty-one, not dead.”
“Claire.”
I turned.
Diane’s voice broke.
“I was afraid.”
I waited.
“Of Rebecca?”
Diane looked at me.
“No.”
May you like
Then she said the thing that finally explained why truth had become impossible for her.
“I was afraid you’d choose her.”
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