Chapter 21 - THE FIRST LETTER
Tove wrote when Mireya was twelve.
Through the approved channel.
Mireya chose whether to read.
“No.”
We stored it.
At fourteen:
“No.”
At sixteen:
“Maybe.”
We opened the newest letter, not the oldest.
Tove wrote:
I used to tell myself I was testing whether you truly needed the inhaler. I had no right to test you.
Good.
Then:
I believed your father’s fear made your asthma worse. Sometimes fear probably did make breathing feel harder. I used that small truth to excuse ignoring the larger truth that you had asthma and I was not your doctor.
Better.
Then:
I wanted to remain the person you needed most after your mother died. When you began needing me less, I treated that as something being stolen from me.
Mireya stopped.
“That’s weird.”
“Yes.”
“Did she know I loved her?”
“I think so.”
“Then why need most?”
“I don’t know.”
Mireya continued.
Tove did not ask for forgiveness.
Did not ask for meeting.
Ended:
You never owed me proof that I mattered.
Mireya folded it.
Cried.
Then went to soccer practice.
May you like
No response.
That was allowed.
