Chapter 9 - CELESTE HAD BEEN TELLING ME SOPHIE DIDN’T WANT MY NOTESThe letters stayed in the wooden box for weeks.

Sophie did not want to read them immediately.

Her choice.

Then one rainy Sunday, she brought the box downstairs.

“Can we do five?”

“Five what?”

“Letters.”

We opened five.

Chicago.

Dallas.

Boston.

London.

Seattle.

Stupid little notes.

I love you.

Brush your teeth.

Tell Teresa not to let you convince her brownies count as breakfast.

One included a drawing of a rabbit wearing sunglasses.

Sophie laughed.

Then stopped.

“I made you pictures too.”

My stomach tightened.

“What pictures?”

“When you went away.”

“Where are they?”

“I gave them to Celeste.”

I already knew the answer.

The locked room.

We searched the boxes.

There they were.

Seventeen drawings.

Folded.

Never shown to me.

One said:

DADDY COME HOME SOON.

Another:

ME + DADDY + BUNNY.

Then one from four months earlier:

DADDY DO YOU STILL LOVE ME MOST?

I sat on the floor.

Sophie looked confused.

“You didn't see it?”

“No.”

“Celeste said you did.”

My throat closed.

“What did she say I said?”

“That I need to stop making you feel guilty.”

There it was.

Not only letters intercepted.

Responses invented.

Celeste told me Sophie wanted fewer notes.

Told Sophie I received her drawings and considered them emotionally manipulative.

She had been translating us to each other.

Badly.

Deliberately.

Then Michael obtained more communication through the dispute over household expenses and wedding matters.

One message from Celeste to her sister:

Grant and Sophie have an unhealthy grief loop. Every time he travels they perform missing each other like it's a tragedy.

Another:

I'm ending the stupid rabbit-note ritual. He'll thank me eventually.

There.

Direct.

She had not simply misplaced letters.

She intentionally stopped the ritual.

Then:

Sophie needs to learn Grant has a life that doesn't revolve around whether she cries.

I read that sentence several times.

The cruelty was real.

Yet the next message complicated it.

I cannot marry a man whose dead wife and daughter decide the emotional temperature of every room.

There.

Celeste's resentment.

Not financially motivated.

Not a secret scheme for my company.

She felt like the third person in a marriage where Mara remained emotionally present through Sophie.

Did I contribute?

Probably.

I sometimes compared Celeste to Mara.

Not intentionally cruel.

Mara used to love that restaurant.

Mara always packed that way.

Mara knew how to calm Sophie faster.

I can imagine how that felt.

That did not justify punishing a child.

But the conflict had an adult origin I needed to acknowledge.

My therapist asked:

“Did you make room for Celeste as herself?”

I did not answer immediately.

Sometimes I wanted a woman to fill the empty space without changing its shape.

That was unfair.

Again:

My failure.

Not Sophie's debt.

Not Celeste's permission to isolate her.

Then we found one more email from Celeste to Lakehurst.

Father-daughter attachment has intensified recently despite my efforts to encourage healthy separation.

Despite my efforts.

The letters.

The drawings.

The rabbit.

The locked room.

All of it was one effort.

She had been trying to weaken our bond and then using Sophie's distress at the weakening as proof the bond was unhealthy.

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The circle was almost complete.

Part 10 revealed how carefully she had built it.