I found the letter three days before Jamie’s 18th birthday, hidden beneath his father’s watch. It was from his birth mother — sealed, waiting 17 years to tell him something I never could. I had to decide: give him the truth that might destroy us, or let him believe a lie that kept us together.
My late husband’s study still smelled like him, old leather and that woody cologne he wore.
Dust motes hung in the afternoon light, dancing away from me as I approached the desk.
Jaime, my stepson, was turning 18 in three days. Michael had promised him an heirloom watch — the one his grandfather wore in the war, the one Michael wore on our wedding day.
Giving that watch to Jaime was the last promise I could keep for my husband, the last thing I could still get right.
Jamie had been slipping away from me since the funeral. Not with slammed doors or shouted words, just quietly, like sand through fingers.
Lately, he was always at the gym, Noah’s garage, or some friend’s house.
Our dinners had gone from conversations to transactions: “Pass the salt.” “I’ll be out tonight.” “Thanks for dinner.”
I told myself he was just grieving, but late at night, when the house was too quiet and too big, I wondered if maybe it was more than that.
I opened the desk drawers. Inside, there were papers, pens, and a stack of old business cards Michael never threw away.
I found the watch box in the bottom drawer.
I picked it up, and that’s when I saw the envelope underneath.
It was slightly yellowed at the edges. Michael had written across the front:
But I didn’t write this… that meant it had to be from her, Jamie’s biological mother. The woman who died when he was eight months old.
Michael never told me about this letter, not once in all our years together.
Why would he keep this from me?
The envelope was sealed. My finger moved toward the flap almost automatically, like my body was making decisions my mind wasn’t ready for.
What if this letter undid everything? What if it made Jamie realize that I was never enough, that I could never be what she would have been?
I stopped myself, set the letter down on the desk, and stared at it.
Seventeen years that woman has been gone, I thought.
And I’ve been here for 16 of them. I’ve packed lunches, stayed up through stomach flus, and taught him to drive.
The story doesn’t end here –
it continues on the next page.
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