“Seventeen,” I say quietly, counting them at a glance.
“You know what they are?” he asks, but it’s not really a question.
I nod, my stomach in knots.
I reverse the order of the cards, with the help of the postmarks. The first one is a letter to me from that summer after Sylvia left. Just as she told me, the letter includes the news that she’s pregnant and that’s why she left town. It’s an appeal for my understanding, and maybe my help, and it must have devastated her that I didn’t even reply.
“Never saw them before?” Jake guesses quietly and I shake my head.
“She told me she wrote. He told me no letters ever came.”
“Someone had to be telling porky pies.”
I nod sadly, turning to the next letter. It’s addressed to my dad and is a Christmas card. “I never thought he would lie to me. I was wrong. He admitted it last night.”
Jake exhales and pushes his hand through his hair. He drops his other hand to my shoulder and gives it a squeeze, then leaves me alone.
In that Christmas card, Sylvia is clear that Sierra isn’t Luke’s child. She sounds insulted and so angry that I know she called, that she talked to Dad. I wonder what word he used and I don’t have to imagine very hard to guess.
But she still wrote and sent pictures, because that’s Sylvia. Funny how Dad always insisted that doing the right thing despite obstacles was a sign of superior character, and it’s Sylvia showing that trait here, not him.
The next one is from the following February, with baby pictures of Sierra. She’s adorable right from the outset, and Sylvia points out those Cavendish blue eyes and raven dark hair in her letter to me about our daughter.
I am ashamed that she felt obliged to give me evidence of my role. Thanks, Dad.
The next card to me is from Sierra’s first birthday. It doesn’t seem possible but Sierra is even more cute. That toothless smile. I could look at these pictures for a week. My chest is so tight that I can hardly breathe, but Jake’s Scotch burns a hole right through.
I’m holding a catalogue of everything I missed, all the years I never knew my own daughter existed, all the time Sylvia raised her alone. She wrote each and every year, keeping me up to date.
And my father took that away from me. Not by accident, but deliberately.
The fourth year, there’s a letter addressed to my dad, too. I read that one, too. Sylvia thanks him so politely for the notification of my engagement to Lauren that I feel like an asshole who betrayed a trust. She called again, and I didn’t even know.
After that, her tone is more formal.
But she sends the annual update. She keeps me in the loop, even though I don’t ever reply, because she believes that’s the right thing to do. Sierra is my daughter, after all, even if I apparently didn’t want to hear about it.
It wasn’t Sylvia who betrayed my trust.
And my father betrayed us all by keeping these letters secret to the very end.
“I’ve got somewhere to go,” I say before I open another one.
“Of course, you do,” Jake says and I find something like sympathy in his eyes for the first time I can remember.
Maybe that’s why I can admit that I need help. “How do I fix this?”
He shrugs, then forces a smile. “Just tell her the truth. Women love that shit.”
“I always have.”
“You’re golden then.” He drains his glass, his eyes dancing with mischief so that I end up smiling back at him. “Go on. Get out of here.” I swing to my feet and head out, something like optimism making my step lighten. “And good luck,” he adds when I’m almost out the door.
“You said that when I brought Lauren home.”
“Well, I was saying it to her, but details.”
“What?”
