So I asked quietly, “Did you ever try to tell me?”
Pain moved across her face.
“I wrote twice. One letter came back marked return to sender. The other was delivered to your mother’s house and disappeared.”
Before I could answer, the door opened again.
Leo stood there holding three uneven gingerbread cookies.
Later, Jessi allowed me into the entryway and returned with a small wooden box. Inside were Leo’s hospital bracelet, a tiny lock of dark baby hair, and a sealed envelope with my name written carefully across the front.
At the bottom, Jessi had added:
Please come yourself, Ivan. Do not let your mother speak for you.
I turned the envelope over.
Beneath the official postal return stamp was handwriting I recognized instantly.
My mother Wendy’s sharp script.
He has chosen the Army and wants nothing to do with this child.
I stared at my mother’s sentence until the words seemed to blur. Wendy had not simply failed to forward Jessi’s letter. She had answered on my behalf, invented my intentions, and made a life-changing decision about my son while I was thousands of miles away in a combat zone.
