Susan reached for the second letter, taking care not to rip it open. She grabbed a letter opener from her desk drawer, sat down at her desk, and carefully slipped the opener under the envelope flap.
My Darling Daughters,
You don’t remember me, your true mother. You were too young, too traumatized to remember that night so long ago when you, Julie, were four and you, Jeannie, were two. Maybe there are traces of me and our life together buried within you. Here, I’ll give you a spade to unearth memories, some that I hope will bring you joy, others I know will disturb you. But that they be memories, my darlings, you can work through and rise above them.
My name is Mona Simpson, daughter of Clyde and Sally. Sally you knew as your grandmother, but not the mother of either of the couples you knew as parents. I am now approaching my 86th birthday and ill of health. I don’t have long to live and that is why I am reaching out to you without fear of retribution. I am in a women’s penitentiary in the middle of the country. Here I’ve survived for 55 years, soon after that fateful night. I’ve had no visitors. Other than my mother, your grandma, no one in our family knows I was brought here. Perhaps they were told I died, or committed suicide.
Neither of you know the depths of a mother’s love and so, with this short letter, I want to convey to you that the love I have felt for you both has sustained me for all these years. I have written you countless letters, none of which I’ve been able to mail to you. I keep them here, next to me, along with any communication, pictures I have of you that have been able to reach me. I treasure them, look at them every day. Although she could not visit me, your grandma managed to send me what news she could. She had to be very careful, else she would have put you in danger. When she died ten years ago, all contact with your lives ended. My heart broke yet again, as it has throughout my time here, aching in yearning with love for my daughters, whose lives were now permanently lost to me.
My darlings, I’ve asked a friend incarcerated here who will be released soon, to contact the closest neighbor we knew back then, Craig (do you remember him?) and give him this letter to deliver to you. He was an only child, motherless, and would visit us for afternoon snacks. You didn’t like him much, he was older than you, a little odd, with his tics and twitches. Yet he was kind. But you loved to play with his kitty. He didn’t tell his father about his visits to our cottage; it was our little secret. I’m sure he’s lost track of you and so it will be quite a feat for him to locate you while, at the same time, do so with the possibility of putting himself in danger. I’ve requested he take precautions and not reveal himself to you. Although this letter may never reach you, I will spend my last days with hope in my heart that he will be successful. On the day you read this letter I will have died.
