I had been afraid of this moment.<\/p>\n
Not because Stephanie was reading.<\/p>\n
Because I didn't know whether my children were ready to hear their father without turning his words into another disagreement.<\/p>\n
For the first few minutes, they had been comparing envelopes.<\/p>\n
Danny's was thicker.<\/p>\n
Stephanie wanted to know why.<\/p>\n
Michael wanted to know whether the difference was fair.<\/p>\n
I had been trying to get them to open what Walt had left.<\/p>\n
Now Stephanie had done it.<\/p>\n
The photograph was on the table.<\/p>\n
The letter was in her hands.<\/p>\n
And her brothers were waiting.<\/p>\n
It wasn't much.<\/p>\n
But it was the first time since we had sat down that all three were paying attention to the same thing.<\/p>\n
I looked at the picture again.<\/p>\n
Stephanie at eight.<\/p>\n
Walt carrying her on his shoulders.<\/p>\n
The county fair behind them.<\/p>\n
Her eyes shut from laughing.<\/p>\n
I didn't need to see anything else to know how much that photograph meant to me.<\/p>\n
She had been so small then.<\/p>\n
I had been younger.<\/p>\n
Walt had been alive.<\/p>\n
That was the part I could never get around.<\/p>\n
He had been alive.<\/p>\n
He had carried our daughter.<\/p>\n
He had been there for a moment that could fit into a photograph.<\/p>\n
And now we were sitting at Danny's folding table with only the photograph and the letter.<\/p>\n
I pressed my hands together.<\/p>\n
I didn't want to cry while Stephanie read.<\/p>\n
I wasn't ashamed of crying.<\/p>\n
I just didn't want her to feel she had to look after me.<\/p>\n
She was about to hear something her father had written for her.<\/p>\n
I wanted her to have that moment without worrying about my face.<\/p>\n
Stephanie looked at the page.<\/p>\n
Then at the photograph.<\/p>\n
Then back at the page.<\/p>\n
Michael shifted in his chair.<\/p>\n
The movement caught my eye.<\/p>\n
He was watching his sister.<\/p>\n
His own envelope remained unopened.<\/p>\n
Danny's was still thick and sealed.<\/p>\n
For once, nobody was reaching for it.<\/p>\n
Stephanie took a breath.<\/p>\n
"Mom, did Dad write all of these himself?"<\/p>\n
I looked at her.<\/p>\n
"He wrote the letters."<\/p>\n
She glanced at the paper again.<\/p>\n
"I thought so."<\/p>\n
She ran her thumb along the edge.<\/p>\n
I recognized the handwriting from where I sat.<\/p>\n
It felt strange to see it in someone else's hands.<\/p>\n
For years, the sight of Walt's writing had been ordinary to me.<\/p>\n
Now there was nothing ordinary about it.<\/p>\n
I watched Stephanie study the page.<\/p>\n
Her expression was serious.<\/p>\n
She no longer seemed interested in comparing the size of her envelope with Danny's.<\/p>\n
At least not right then.<\/p>\n
That was enough for me.<\/p>\n
I couldn't ask more of the moment than it was giving.<\/p>\n
Michael glanced toward the picture again.<\/p>\n
"That's from the fair?"<\/p>\n
Stephanie nodded.<\/p>\n
"Yeah."<\/p>\n
"How old were you?"<\/p>\n
"Eight."<\/p>\n
He looked at it for another second.<\/p>\n
Then sat back.<\/p>\n
It was such a simple exchange.<\/p>\n
But it helped.<\/p>\n
They were speaking about a memory.<\/p>\n
Not a share.<\/p>\n
Not a division.<\/p>\n
Not who had received the most.<\/p>\n
I had wanted that from the beginning.<\/p>\n
I could remember kissing each of them goodnight when they were little.<\/p>\n
Stephanie.<\/p>\n
Michael.<\/p>\n
Danny.<\/p>\n
Sometimes the evenings had been easy.<\/p>\n
Sometimes I had been tired.<\/p>\n
Sometimes one child needed more attention than the others.<\/p>\n
But they were all mine.<\/p>\n
I had loved each of them.<\/p>\n
I still did.<\/p>\n
Looking at them now, I understood that loving them didn't mean I could make them respond in the same way.<\/p>\n
They were different people.<\/p>\n
They had different questions.<\/p>\n
Different fears.<\/p>\n
Different habits.<\/p>\n
I had known that for years.<\/p>\n
Yet part of me still expected them to become children again whenever we were together.<\/p>\n
I expected them to sit around a table and let me explain.<\/p>\n
I expected them to trust that I had a reason for what I was doing.<\/p>\n
That expectation wasn't fair to them.<\/p>\n
They were adults.<\/p>\n
Walt was gone.<\/p>\n
And whatever happened with the envelopes would belong to them as much as it belonged to me.<\/p>\n
I looked at Stephanie's letter.<\/p>\n
She had flattened it carefully.<\/p>\n
The photograph lay close to her elbow.<\/p>\n
Her fingers were resting near the first line.<\/p>\n
"Take your time," I said.<\/p>\n
She looked up.<\/p>\n
"I am."<\/p>\n
I nodded.<\/p>\n
"All right."<\/p>\n
She wasn't angry.<\/p>\n
She sounded focused.<\/p>\n
I was grateful for that.<\/p>\n
Michael reached toward his own envelope, then stopped.<\/p>\n
He left it where it was.<\/p>\n
Danny looked down at the one in front of him.<\/p>\n
He didn't pick it up.<\/p>\n
I couldn't tell what either of my sons was thinking.<\/p>\n
I could only see what they were doing.<\/p>\n
They were waiting for their sister.<\/p>\n
I thought about how the evening had begun.<\/p>\n
Three envelopes placed in front of three grown children.<\/p>\n
One difference noticed almost immediately.<\/p>\n
One question that had made everyone quiet.<\/p>\n
Then another question about whether the contents should have been equal.<\/p>\n
I had felt myself preparing to defend something before anyone had even read it.<\/p>\n
I hadn't wanted that.<\/p>\n
I had wanted the letters to come first.<\/p>\n
And now, at last, they were.<\/p>\n
Stephanie lifted the page slightly.<\/p>\n
She looked at her father's writing one more time.<\/p>\n
Her mouth moved as she read the beginning silently.<\/p>\n
Then she turned toward her brothers.<\/p>\n
"I'll read the first part."<\/p>\n
Michael nodded.<\/p>\n
Danny looked at her.<\/p>\n
I sat very still.<\/p>\n
The envelope lay open beside Stephanie's hand.<\/p>\n
The childhood photograph remained on the table.<\/p>\n
And the letter was ready to be heard.<\/p>\n
She looked down at its opening sentence.<\/p>\n
Then she began to speak.<\/p>\n
I had been afraid of this moment. Not because Stephanie was reading. Because I didn't know whether my children were ready to hear their father without turning his words into … <\/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-41711","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\/41711","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=41711"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41711\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41719,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41711\/revisions\/41719"}],"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=41711"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=41711"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=41711"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}