Page 6 of Every Step She Takes
I lift the paper. It doesn’t smell of jasmine. Doesn’t smell of anything. That’s the memory, jasmine-scented paper, and I’d opened the envelope, my heart lifting, so certain that that letter would contain…
Again, the memory clamps shut.
Just open the letter, Lucy.
I still call myself Lucy. My full name is Genevieve Lucille Callahan, after my two grandmothers. According to family lore, my dad struggled with Genevieve. It didn’t roll off his tongue, and he misspelled it on my birth notice even though it was his mother’s name.
Dad used Lucy as his pet name for me. He died when I was five – T-boned by a drunk driver – and I started going by Lucy in tribute to him. I’d reverted to Genevieve when I decided to make a fresh start in Europe, but in my head, I will always be Lucy, even if, at times, that feels like self-flagellation, the occasional lash to remind me I will never truly be Genevieve with her quirkily unorthodox and deeply satisfying life.
Just open the damn letter, Lucy.
Yes, I’m procrastinating. I know from experience that it does no good. How many days did I tell myself that if I just didn’t look at the news, it wouldn’t exist? The news exists. My story exists. This letter exists.
Deep breath…
I unfold it.
Dear Lucy
I know I’m the last person you want to hear from –
I freeze. I’m not even certain I process the words. I see that salutation, in that script, and the memory slams back, that jasmine-scented letter in this same hand.
Dear Lucy,
I trusted you. With my children. With my home. With my husband.
The letter falls to the floor as I clench the table edge. The floor seems to dip under my feet, and I want to drop to it. Drop and bang my head against it for not recognizing that damned perfect handwriting.
I snatch the letter from the floor, march across the tiny kitchen and yank open a drawer. I have to dig to the back of the assorted junk – paper clips, elastic bands, take-out cards – until my fingers close around a small cardboard box.
I strike a wooden match, flame hissing to life. Then I hold up the letter and…
I hesitate there, the flame an inch from the paper. Hesitate and then snuff out the match with my fingers and let it drop to the floor.
A fine sentiment, but if I burn this letter, I’ll only spend more sleepless nights wondering what she’d said, what she wanted, what she was threatening to do if she didn’t get it.
Isabella Morales knows where I am.
Of all the people I fear having that information, Isabella tops the list. I haven’t heard from her since that infamous letter, and now something has happened to make her reach out, and that bodes no good.
I turn the letter over and begin reading again.
Dear Lucy
I know I’m the last person you want to hear from, but we need to talk. While I understand you’re in Italy, I’m hoping I can persuade you to come to New York for a weekend, at my expense, of course. If you would prefer I came to Rome, I’d happily do that, but I suspect you won’t want me intruding on the life you’ve built there.
I have never forgotten what happened fourteen years ago. I suppose that goes without saying. But as time has passed, I’ve gained enough distance – and, I hope, wisdom – to look back on the events that transpired and realize you were little more than a child, and he took advantage of that. In my pain, I needed someone to blame. I should have aimed that anger at him. Instead, I turned it on you.
I know I cannot make amends, but I would like to talk. Please call me on my private cell so we may arrange a visit.
She gives her number and then signs with a familiar flourish.
This is exactly what I wanted to read fourteen years ago when my trembling fingers tore open that first letter. I hadn’t spoken to Isabella since the incident a month earlier, and enough time would have passed for her to realize there had to be more to the story. She would contact me, and I would tell her everything. I would apologize – fall on my knees and apologize – and she would hug me and tell me it wasn’t my fault.
Of everyone I’d hurt that day, this was the trespass that kept me awake at night. Isabella had been nothing but kind to me, and I’d made a stupid and juvenile mistake. She needed to know it wasn’t what the tabloids said.
I hoped for an opening into which I could pour my apologies. Instead, her letter swam blood-red with hate and invective that sliced me open worse than any screaming tabloid headline.
