Chapter 17 - Verena’s Letter
Verena wrote Odessa when Odessa was ten.
Through counsel.
I did not hand it over automatically.
Dr. Chen advised waiting until Odessa chose.
At twelve she asked.
The first letter was terrible.
I was overwhelmed and made mistakes.
No.
“Mistakes?” Odessa said.
“Yes.”
“She kicked lunchbox by accident?”
“No.”
“Then dumb letter.”
We put it away.
Two years later another arrived.
Better.
I took food from you because I resented what your mother left you and because I convinced myself Mason deserved whatever you had.
Odessa read quietly.
Then:
That was unfair to both of you.
Good.
Then:
I called you unwanted because I wanted to hurt you in the place I knew you were already afraid after losing your mother.
Odessa stopped reading.
Her face changed.
“Did she know?”
“Know what?”
“That I worried Mom left because she didn’t want me?”
I closed my eyes.
After Claire died, four-year-old Odessa had once asked exactly that.
Verena had been in our lives later.
I must have told her.
“Yes.”
Odessa stared at the letter.
“She used it.”
“Yes.”
That was the deepest cruelty.
Not lunch.
Information.
Knowing someone’s wound and selecting it deliberately.
Odessa did not finish the letter that day.
At sixteen she did.
Verena ended:
I do not expect you to forgive me. I hope you learn that my resentment was mine and never evidence about your worth.
Odessa kept that sentence.
Not the letter.
She cut it out.
May you like
Then shredded the rest.
Her choice.
