In April, my mother sent one final letter through Ramona’s office, permitted only because it related to the logistics of restitution and contained, apparently, “personal sentiments.” Lenora asked if I wanted her to screen it.
I said no.
Then I sat at my kitchen table with the envelope for ten full minutes before opening it.
The letter was four pages. I knew by the second paragraph that it was mostly garbage.
Not lies, exactly. Worse. Self-serving truth arranged in the shape of innocence.
She wrote that motherhood had been lonely. That my father’s bad business judgments had put them in terrifying situations. That my grandfather had always had a cruel streak. That she felt humiliated by the way he favored me. That after the funeral she truly believed the house should “remain in the proper line of family.” She wrote that what they did had gone too far, but only because panic and hurt clouded judgment. She wrote that she loved me. She wrote that she hoped one day, when I was older and softer, I might understand.
