Helen reached into the box.
“I know.”
She pulled out an envelope.
Mom recognized the handwriting immediately.
Her own.
Across the front, somebody had written three words in blue ink.
RETURN TO SENDER.
Helen touched the writing.
“That’s my mother’s handwriting.”
Mom looked devastated.
“She sent it back.”
“Yes.”
“Then why did she think I didn’t try?”
Helen swallowed.
“She sent it back because she wanted to see if you’d send another one.”
Mom stared at her.
“What?”
“She checked the mailbox every day afterward.”
Mom closed her eyes.
“Then Christmas came.”
Helen nodded.
“She thought you’d write.”
“I didn’t.”
“I know.”
“I thought she was telling me to leave her alone.”
“And she thought you had given up.”
The cruelty of it was almost impossible to comprehend.
Each believed they were respecting what the other wanted.
Each experienced the other’s silence as rejection.
Years passed.
Robert moved again.
My parents moved.
Anna married.
Her surname changed.
Life became more complicated.
And eventually, misunderstanding hardened into fear.
“Why didn’t she look for me when she got older?” Mom asked.
There was no anger in her voice.
Only heartbreak.
Helen looked at her.
“Probably for the same reason you didn’t look for her.”
Mom said nothing.
“She was scared.”
“Of what?”
“That she’d find you.”
Helen paused.
“And learn she’d been right.”
Mom whispered:
“That I didn’t want her.”
“Yes.”
Mom looked away.
“I was scared of the opposite.”
“That she really didn’t want you.”
Mom nodded.
“For decades.”
Helen reached into the bottom of the box.
There was a small bundle tied with string.
Inside were addresses.
Photographs.
Notes.
Newspaper clippings.
Returned letters.
Anna had looked for Margaret.
Not constantly.
