Chapter 9 - The Letter from Ethan
A year after the baby shower, on Theo's first birthday, a thick white envelope arrived in my mailbox.
It bore no return address, but I recognized Ethan's handwriting instantly.
I sat at my kitchen counter while Theo napped in his nursery down the hall, opening the letter carefully.
Inside were three handwritten pages.
Avery,
I'm writing this because my court-ordered therapist told me I needed to take full accountability for what I did to you and Theo, even if you never forgive me.
I live in a small apartment downtown now. I left Mom's house six months ago after I finally realized that she didn't love me—she loved the control she had over me. When I refused to help her file a secondary appeal against your restraining order, she kicked me out and cut me off entirely. She lives alone in that big house now. Grant doesn't speak to her, I don't speak to her, and none of her old friends visit anymore.
I lost my job, my reputation, my brother, my wife, and my son because I was too much of a coward to stand up to my mother. I watched you fight for Theo with everything you had, while I sat back and let her try to steal him from you.
I don't expect you to let me into Theo's life. I know I haven't earned that right. I just want you to know that I am so deeply, truly sorry for what I put you through.
Happy Birthday to Theo. Please tell him someday that his mother is the bravest woman I ever knew.
Ethan.
I read the letter twice, sitting quietly in the warm sunlight of my kitchen.
There was a time when reading those words would have brought tears of bitterness or anger to my eyes. But now, looking at the paper, I felt only a quiet, distant sadness for a man who had chosen obedience over love, and paid for it with his life's happiness.
I didn't write back. Some doors are closed not out of anger, but out of absolute necessity.
May you like
I folded the letter, placed it inside a storage box in my closet—a box Theo could read when he was an adult if he ever chose to ask about his biological father—and closed the door.
My future was ahead of me, and it didn't include looking back.
