I said it to a room full of strangers before I ever said it to you, he wrote. I don’t know what that says about me. I’m trying to figure it out.
He told me he’d brought my trash bags of clothes to my parents’ porch and left them there in the middle of the night, and then he’d gone back the next night with the rest of my things. My books. My grandmother’s quilt. My favorite coffee mug with the chip on the handle. All of it washed and folded and packed in proper boxes.
I couldn’t stand the thought of your things sitting in garbage bags, he wrote. I couldn’t stand that I did that to you.
I read every letter. I didn’t answer any of them.
When Evelyn was three weeks old, I did something I hadn’t told anyone I was going to do.
