“And that’s why you didn’t come back?”
“I didn’t come back because I was being a coward all over again. Your father slammed the front door in my face once, and I just accepted it as my rightful justice. But a mother who truly wants to see her daughters shouldn’t be stopped by a simple piece of wood.”
My eyes stung with fresh tears. That was exactly what I needed to hear. Not that she had suffered terribly. Not that she missed us every day. I desperately needed her to say that she should have fought for us.
“I should have waited outside your middle school,” she continued, her voice breaking. “I should have sat right on your front porch until you came out and screamed in my face. I should have told you, with my very own voice, that you didn’t break anything. But I was too deeply ashamed for you to see me living like this.”
“I was just a child.”
“I know.”
“I was not your judge.”
“I know.”
“I was not your enemy.”
My mom covered her mouth and finally wept openly. But her tears didn’t control my emotions anymore.
The Altar
The door bell chimed once again. My dad walked into the shop. Right behind him was Emma. I don’t know who actually called them. Maybe Lily texted them. Maybe it was the pain itself, which always seems to find a way to drag the guilty into the exact same room.
My mom and dad stared at each other for the first time in well over a decade. There was absolutely no love left. No clean, simple hate either. Just absolute ruins.
“Richard,” she whispered.
“Katherine.”
Emma forcefully pushed past them both and stood directly in front of my mother. “Do you even remember me?”
My mom cried much harder. “Every single day.”
Emma shook her head. “No. I’m not giving you that out. If you had actually remembered us every day, you would have come back for at least one of them.”
It was a flawless emotional strike. My mother simply accepted it. My dad looked over at me with sad eyes.
“I failed you guys too.”
Emma quickly turned on him. “Don’t even start with that.”
“I have to say it out loud.”
The small salon went dead silent. Outside the glass, people were casually walking by, laughing under the bright Boston sun. The rest of the world kept moving, just as it always does, while our shattered family laid itself completely bare between a stained glass mirror and a dusty row of red nail polishes.
“I took those letters,” my dad admitted. “I took away your free choice. I honestly thought I was protecting you girls, but I was also just punishing her. And in dishing out that punishment, I selfishly left you without any real answers.”
Lily hugged her arms tightly around herself. “I used to literally pray for Mom to come back.”
My dad broke down crying. “Please forgive me, my sweet girl.”
“I’m not a little girl anymore,” Lily said flatly. “And I don’t know if I can ever forgive you.”
We left the city later that afternoon. There was no cinematic, movie-style hug. No magical, instant forgiveness. Just the raw truth, told in full, which was vastly more than we had ever had before.
Several months later, for Día de los Muertos, I set up a small memorial altar in my apartment. It wasn’t to mourn Katherine, because she was obviously still alive. It wasn’t for Richard, because he was still physically there, slowly learning how to genuinely apologize without expecting an immediate answer.
I made it for the innocent girl I used to be.
I put up an old photo of myself from middle school, a lit candle, some purple marigolds, and a fresh piece of pan de muerto. Emma brought over some dark chocolate. Lily brought a small teddy bear just like the one she carried on the awful day Mom left. Right in the center, I carefully placed the handwritten letter. The very first one. The one that arrived way too late, but arrived nonetheless.
Later that night, my cell phone buzzed. It was a text message from a Boston area code.
Chloe, I don’t expect you to answer this. I just wanted to finally say what I should have said that exact day: I’m so sorry. It wasn’t your fault. It was never your fault. —Mom.
I stared down at the glowing screen for a very long time. I didn’t type a reply. Not yet, anyway.
But I no longer felt an invisible hand tightening viciously around my throat. I no longer heard the zipper of that red suitcase closing like a permanent death sentence. I no longer saw my mother glaring at me as if I were the one who had betrayed her.
Instead, I saw a brave twelve-year-old girl simply telling the truth. And for the very first time in twelve long years, I was finally able to give her a hug.