Clara and Paige, if you are reading this together, then something in my plan worked.
Paige groaned. “She was so dramatic.”
I laughed. “You’re one to talk.”
We sat on the attic floor and read the rest.
Mom wrote that she had spent too many years trying to keep peace instead of teaching us how to repair. She wrote that she regretted praising me for being easy and scolding Paige for being loud. She wrote that children become what families reward and punish.
Then she wrote one line that stayed with me forever:
Do not make enemies out of the people who remember where your scars came from.
Paige leaned her head on my shoulder.
I let her.
The attic smelled like dust and cedar and the past.
But for once, the past did not feel like a prison.
It felt like a room we could finally leave.
People still ask me about my wedding.
