I know you loved me. I need you to know I loved you too.
Jimmy stepped forward fast like he thought I might fall out of the chair.
Laura wrote that she had been scared. Scared to ask me for too much. Scared to hand me a life that already came with so much weight. But she said I was never extra in Jimmy's life. I was the safest part of it.
Then Jimmy quietly said, "There's more."
"What did she say to you?"
He handed me another set of papers.
Adult adoption forms. Printed recently. Filled out in Jimmy's careful handwriting except for the signatures.
I stared at him. "You did this?"
He nodded. "After I read my letter."
I looked up. "What did she say to you?"
"That when I turned 18, I'd have the right to make one choice for myself." His eyes were already wet. "So I made it."
"Jimmy..."
He came around the table and stood next to me.
He took a breath. "I had no other choice."
I covered my face and cried harder than I had in years.
He came around the table and stood next to me.
After a minute I said, "I can't sign these right now."
His face fell. "Okay."
"No." I wiped my face. "Not because I don't want to. Because this is your mother. This is the last thing she ever left us. I don't want to rush through it."
"She wrote all these for me?"
He nodded. "Then come upstairs."
We went into the attic together.
Inside was Laura's life in pieces. Hospital bracelets. A blue baby blanket. Photos. Birthday cards she never got to give Jimmy.
And letters.
Five. Six. Seven. Ten. Thirteen. Sixteen. Eighteen.
Halfway through he laughed through tears.
Jimmy sat on the floor and whispered, "She wrote all these for me?"
"Looks like it."
He opened the one marked Five.
Halfway through he laughed through tears. "She told me to listen to you because you know how to make pancakes without burning the edges."
He opened another.
Jimmy stopped reading and looked at me.
At thirteen, she wrote: If you ever get angry at the world, take a walk with him. He understands silence better than most people understand words.
Jimmy stopped reading and looked at me. "She really saw you."
That one nearly finished me.
The letter for 18 ended with this:
By now, I hope you know what I knew from the start. Family is not always the person who gives you a name. Sometimes it is the person who shows up so often that one day you stop imagining life without them.
His office was still above the hardware store.
That afternoon, we drove to the attorney Laura mentioned.
His office was still above the hardware store.
