I had hoped my children would listen before they started comparing.<\/p>\n
I should have known better.<\/p>\n
There were three envelopes on the table in front of them.<\/p>\n
One for Stephanie.<\/p>\n
One for Michael.<\/p>\n
And one for Danny.<\/p>\n
My husband, Walt, had left something behind for each of them.<\/p>\n
At least, that was what they understood.<\/p>\n
Stephanie was the first to notice the difference.<\/p>\n
She kept looking at the envelope in Danny's hands.<\/p>\n
Then she looked at mine.<\/p>\n
"Mom, why does Danny have more papers than we do?"<\/p>\n
Nobody answered.<\/p>\n
We were sitting in Danny's small dining room, crowded around a folding table.<\/p>\n
It wasn't the sort of place where I had ever imagined discussing what my husband had left behind.<\/p>\n
But there we were.<\/p>\n
All four of us.<\/p>\n
And Walt was gone.<\/p>\n
Michael moved closer to the table.<\/p>\n
The watch on his wrist caught the overhead light as he reached toward his envelope.<\/p>\n
He had always worn nice things.<\/p>\n
I noticed the watch because it looked so different from the folding table beneath his arm.<\/p>\n
"What did Dad put in these?" he asked.<\/p>\n
I looked at him.<\/p>\n
Then at Stephanie.<\/p>\n
Then at Danny.<\/p>\n
"I want you to read them first."<\/p>\n
Stephanie didn't appear satisfied.<\/p>\n
She picked up her envelope and held it beside Danny's.<\/p>\n
The difference was obvious.<\/p>\n
Hers was thin.<\/p>\n
Michael's was thin, too.<\/p>\n
Danny's was much thicker.<\/p>\n
I could see why she had asked.<\/p>\n
I could also see that she had already decided what the difference might mean.<\/p>\n
"Is there a reason his is bigger?" she asked.<\/p>\n
I kept my hands together in my lap.<\/p>\n
"Yes."<\/p>\n
She waited.<\/p>\n
I didn't explain.<\/p>\n
Michael glanced toward Danny.<\/p>\n
"If Dad divided something between us, I'd expect him to be fair."<\/p>\n
There it was.<\/p>\n
Fair.<\/p>\n
One word, and the conversation had already changed.<\/p>\n
We weren't talking about the envelopes anymore.<\/p>\n
We were talking about what each child believed they deserved.<\/p>\n
Danny said nothing.<\/p>\n
He had the thick envelope in front of him, but he hadn't opened it.<\/p>\n
I couldn't tell whether he was waiting for me or simply didn't want to make the others uncomfortable.<\/p>\n
He looked at Stephanie.<\/p>\n
Then at Michael.<\/p>\n
Then down at the table.<\/p>\n
I remembered looking at those same three faces when they were little.<\/p>\n
Back then, I could usually tell what troubled them before they said a word.<\/p>\n
A scraped knee.<\/p>\n
A bad day.<\/p>\n
A frightened look after a nightmare.<\/p>\n
I had kissed each of them goodnight more times than I could count.<\/p>\n
I had tucked blankets around their shoulders.<\/p>\n
I had listened when they called for me.<\/p>\n
I had believed that knowing my children would always be the easiest thing in the world.<\/p>\n
I knew better now.<\/p>\n
Stephanie sat with her envelope between two fingers.<\/p>\n
Michael kept watching me.<\/p>\n
Danny stayed quiet.<\/p>\n
They were my children.<\/p>\n
All three.<\/p>\n
But they had become adults who approached the same moment in three very different ways.<\/p>\n
That was what frightened me.<\/p>\n
Not the envelopes.<\/p>\n
Not the question.<\/p>\n
The possibility that they would hear only what they wanted to hear.<\/p>\n
"Please," I said. "Just read what your father left."<\/p>\n
Michael looked at the envelope again.<\/p>\n
"Can you at least tell us whether these are all the same?"<\/p>\n
"No."<\/p>\n
Stephanie gave me a sharp look.<\/p>\n
"No, they're not the same?"<\/p>\n
"That's right."<\/p>\n
She leaned back.<\/p>\n
"Then why can't you explain the difference?"<\/p>\n
"Because I want you to see what's inside."<\/p>\n
There was no anger in my voice.<\/p>\n
I was tired of anger.<\/p>\n
I wanted one quiet moment in which my children could read something from their father without making it a contest.<\/p>\n
I wanted them to remember the man who had written those letters.<\/p>\n
The man who had been their father.<\/p>\n
The man whose absence had brought us together around that table.<\/p>\n
I looked at Danny again.<\/p>\n
He had one hand resting beside his envelope.<\/p>\n
He wasn't touching the flap.<\/p>\n
I wondered whether he understood why I wanted all three of them to open their letters before anyone said another word.<\/p>\n
Maybe he did.<\/p>\n
Maybe he didn't.<\/p>\n
I wasn't going to decide what he was thinking.<\/p>\n
I had already spent too much of my life assuming I understood my children.<\/p>\n
Stephanie turned her envelope over.<\/p>\n
Then back again.<\/p>\n
She was looking for something.<\/p>\n
A mark.<\/p>\n
An explanation.<\/p>\n
Some little detail that would tell her why Danny had received a thicker one.<\/p>\n
I watched her fingers.<\/p>\n
I remembered those same hands holding tightly to Walt's when she was small.<\/p>\n
That memory hurt more than I expected.<\/p>\n
"Mom?"<\/p>\n
I looked up.<\/p>\n
Michael was still waiting.<\/p>\n
"Are we supposed to open them together?"<\/p>\n
"Yes."<\/p>\n
He nodded once.<\/p>\n
But he didn't move.<\/p>\n
Stephanie looked at Danny's envelope again.<\/p>\n
It sat there, thicker than the other two, impossible to ignore.<\/p>\n
The difference had become the most important thing in the room.<\/p>\n
I wished they could see how little I wanted that.<\/p>\n
I wished Walt had been sitting beside me.<\/p>\n
He would have known what to say.<\/p>\n
Or perhaps he wouldn't.<\/p>\n
I had no way of knowing anymore.<\/p>\n
All I had were the envelopes he had left behind.<\/p>\n
Three envelopes.<\/p>\n
Three children.<\/p>\n
And a conversation I could not control.<\/p>\n
I drew a slow breath.<\/p>\n
"Go ahead," I said.<\/p>\n
Stephanie placed a finger beneath the flap of hers.<\/p>\n
Michael watched.<\/p>\n
Danny waited.<\/p>\n
And I realized that the moment I had been putting off was finally here.<\/p>\n
There was nothing else I could do for them.<\/p>\n
They had to read their father's words themselves.<\/p>\n
I had hoped my children would listen before they started comparing. I should have known better. There were three envelopes on the table in front of them. One for Stephanie. … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":41707,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-41708","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-insightdrama"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41708","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=41708"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41708\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41716,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41708\/revisions\/41716"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/41707"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=41708"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=41708"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=41708"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}