Maya and Sophie were standing beside her, confused and frightened.
I introduced him.
“This is Daniel. He was Ethan’s best friend.”
Clara stared at him.
“You knew my brother?”
Daniel smiled sadly.
“I knew him better than almost anyone.”
Clara wiped her cheeks.
“Then why have I never met you?”
Daniel looked at me.
“Because your mother asked me not to come back.”
Clara turned toward me.
“Mom?”
I closed my eyes.
That was true.
But it wasn’t the whole truth.
“I asked him to stay away,” I said.
“Why?”
“Because after Ethan died, every person who knew him reminded me of what I’d lost.”
Daniel nodded.
“But there was another reason.”
He placed the blue-wrapped box on the table.
“I promised Ethan something.”
Clara slowly sat down.
“What did he ask you to promise?”
Daniel looked at her.
“That if something happened to him, I would watch over you.”
Clara’s face crumpled.
“He knew?”
“He knew the surgery was risky.”
“So he asked you to watch me?”
“Yes.”
“From where?”
Daniel hesitated.
“From a distance.”
My stomach tightened.
“You’ve been watching her?”
“Not like that,” Daniel said quickly. “I never followed her. I never interfered with her life.”
He pointed toward the photograph.
“I didn’t take that picture.”
“Then who did?”
Daniel’s expression changed.
“I don’t know.”
That answer frightened me more than anything else.
He opened the box.
Inside was a stack of envelopes.
All of them were yellow with age.
Some were tied together with a faded piece of string.
On the top envelope, written in handwriting I knew better than my own, were five words:
For Clara, when she turns eighteen.
Clara reached for it.
Then stopped.
“Mom?”
I nodded.
She opened the envelope.
Inside was a single sheet of paper.
She began reading aloud.
“Dear Clara,
If you’re reading this, then you’re eighteen.
That means you finally caught up to me.
I wish I could have been there to annoy you about it.”
Clara laughed through her tears.
Then she continued.
“I don’t know what you’ll remember about me.
Maybe Mom will tell you I was stubborn.
She’s right.
Maybe she’ll tell you I stole cookies.
Also true.
But there is something I need you to know.
You were never the reason I was afraid.
You were the reason I wasn’t.”
Clara stopped reading.
She pressed the paper against her chest.
I turned away.
I couldn’t watch her cry.
Daniel quietly said, “There’s more.”
Clara continued.
“I know everyone keeps telling Mom that the operation will be safe.
I believe them.
But if something goes wrong, I don’t want you growing up thinking you took me away from her.
You didn’t.
You gave me something to fight for.
You were five years old.
You didn’t ask for any of this.
So if you’re ever angry at me, be angry.
If you miss me, miss me.
But don’t ever apologize for surviving.”
Clara broke down.
I went to her and held her.
For several moments, neither of us spoke.
Then she whispered,
“Why didn’t you give me this before?”
Daniel looked at me.
“I tried.”
I stared at him.
“What do you mean?”
“I brought the letters to your house.”
“When?”
“Two weeks after Ethan died.”
I shook my head.
“No.”
“I left them with your neighbor.”
“My neighbor?”
“Mrs. Bell.”
My heart stopped.
Mrs. Bell had lived next door for years.
“She never gave me anything.”
Daniel reached into his coat.
“I thought she had.”
He pulled out an old receipt.
“Then, years later, I found out she had moved away. Her daughter was clearing out her house and contacted me.”
I stared at the receipt.
There was a date.
Three weeks after Ethan’s funeral.
Then Daniel said something that made the room go cold.
“She also gave me something else.”
“What?”
