I lifted them one by one.
“For your first day of school.”
“For when you turn 16.”
“For graduation.”
“For the day you fall in love.”
Then, I found the one that broke me.
“For the day you need your dad and I’m not there.”
I bent over the table, crying so hard that I could barely breathe.
After a while, I picked up the envelope addressed to me.
Daniel’s handwriting covered several pages.
He said he was sorry.
Sorry for keeping his illness secret.
Sorry for deciding about my pregnancy when that decision should have belonged to both of us.
He said he knew I might hate him for it someday.
For several minutes, I did.
Then, I reached the next paragraph.
“I knew I couldn’t give them a lifetime with their father. So I tried to leave pieces of myself wherever I thought they might need me.”
The envelopes blurred in front of me.
