Vanessa kept reading.
The early letters weren’t angry.
That was the hardest part.
They were hopeful.
The girls had written as if their mother might eventually read them.
As if she were delayed.
Not gone.
But year by year, that hope became quieter.
The final letter had been written when they were ten.
Mom, I hope you’re okay wherever you are.
After that—
nothing.
Vanessa searched through the pile.
“There must be more.”
Sophie shook her head.
“There aren’t.”
“I don’t understand.”
Clara answered.
“We stopped writing.”
Vanessa frowned.
“Why?”
Lily folded her hands.
“Because eventually we realized we weren’t writing to a person anymore.”
She paused.
“We were writing to an empty place.”
Vanessa looked down at the letters across her lap.
They were not accusations.
Nobody had assembled them for revenge.
They were simply fifteen years of childhood—
preserved exactly as it happened.
