Chapter 5 - THE FIRST LETTER
We did not give Emily all the letters.
Not yet.
We read them first with an adoption therapist.
Diane’s first letter began:
Dear Emily,
I don’t know what name your parents gave you, so I’m calling you Emily because that was the name I whispered before you were born.
I stopped.
Claire covered her mouth.
Emily was the name Diane had chosen.
Andrew and Claire had independently chosen the same name from Claire’s grandmother.
Coincidence.
Nothing mystical.
Still devastating.
Diane wrote:
I hope you are safe. I hope someone sings badly to you. My dad says parents who adopt usually have their lives together, so maybe they sing well. I hope not. Everyone deserves one embarrassing parent.
I laughed through tears.
She did not ask for Emily back.
Did not guilt.
Did not call herself Mommy.
She wrote:
I chose adoption because I was afraid I would make your life as unstable as mine felt. I hope someday you understand choosing not to raise you was not the same as choosing not to love you.
May you like
Frank had read that.
Then put it in a box.
