Chapter 2 - THE BOXES ADDRESSED TO SOPHIE
The basement smelled like cardboard and old wood.
Nothing about it looked immediately sinister.
Shelves.
Holiday decorations.
A treadmill nobody used.
Paint cans lined neatly along one wall.
Daniel carried Sophie halfway down the stairs before she started shaking.
He stopped.
“You don’t have to come.”
She looked over his shoulder toward Vanessa.
“I want Daddy.”
“You have me.”
He carried her back upstairs and called his sister, Megan, who lived fifteen minutes away.
Vanessa objected.
“This is ridiculous.”
Daniel ignored her.
When Megan arrived, she took Sophie upstairs.
Only then did Daniel return to the basement.
Vanessa followed.
At the far end stood a locked storage room.
Daniel knew the room existed.
He had not been inside since they renovated the basement two years earlier.
The brass key opened that door too.
Inside were seven boxes.
All labeled.
SOPHIE — BIRTHDAY.
SOPHIE — CHRISTMAS.
SOPHIE — LETTERS.
Daniel stopped moving.
Vanessa stood behind him.
“Let me explain.”
He opened the first box.
A stuffed fox.
A children’s book.
A pink sweater several sizes too small now.
Every item still had packaging around it.
Each included a card.
To Sophie.
From Julia.
Daniel picked up the first envelope.
Postmarked almost two years earlier.
Another.
Then another.
He opened the letter box.
Dozens.
Some ordinary white envelopes.
Some greeting cards.
Three certified-mail envelopes addressed to Daniel himself.
All had been opened.
“Why do you have these?”
Vanessa crossed her arms.
“Because Julia was destabilizing everything.”
Daniel looked up.
“She contacted us?”
“Yes.”
“How long?”
Vanessa said nothing.
He grabbed another stack.
The earliest letter was dated twenty-six months earlier.
Only four months after Vanessa moved into the house.
Daniel felt heat rise through his neck.
“You told me she disappeared.”
“She did disappear.”
“These are letters.”
“After disappearing.”
“She asked about Sophie.”
“She always asks when it’s convenient.”
Daniel stared at his wife.
The bitterness in Vanessa’s voice was not new.
He had simply interpreted it differently before.
Julia and Daniel had divorced after a brutal year.
Julia had gone through a period of heavy drinking after losing her job and her younger brother within the same six months. One night she left eighteen-month-old Sophie asleep in the house and drove to a liquor store.
A neighbor noticed the open front door.
Sophie was physically unharmed.
Daniel never forgot the terror of that phone call.
He obtained emergency custody.
Julia entered treatment shortly afterward.
Their temporary parenting agreement required six months of documented stability before supervised contact could resume.
Julia made it through four months.
Then missed appointments.
Stopped responding to Daniel’s lawyer.
Daniel assumed she had relapsed.
Eventually he stopped expecting her back.
Vanessa entered his life the following year.
Patient.
Organized.
Wonderful with Sophie.
At least at first.
Daniel held up a certified letter.
“This is from Julia’s attorney.”
Vanessa looked away.
He opened it.
The date was nineteen months earlier.
Mr. Brooks,
Ms. Mercer has completed the treatment and monitoring requirements previously discussed and is requesting that supervised reunification contact with Sophie begin through an agreed child-development professional.
Daniel read it again.
Julia had completed the requirements.
She had asked to see Sophie.
And someone had hidden the request in his basement.
He looked at Vanessa.
“You opened this.”
“Yes.”
“And never gave it to me.”
“No.”
“Why?”
May you like
Vanessa’s voice cracked.
“Because by then Sophie called me Mommy.”
Related Stories
