That Summer in Maine by Brianna Wolfson

That Summer in Maine by Brianna Wolfson

Author:Brianna Wolfson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: MIRA Books
Published: 2020-04-16T13:00:38+00:00


* * *

And with that, Jane wrote:

Letter 7

Jane

Dear Hazel,

There wasn’t ever a time in your life that you didn’t know about your father. About Silas.

I made sure of that when I saw that green eye of yours for the first time and gave you his last name. I wanted you to know about him because I wanted you to know yourself and your story. It was never any secret.

But now I realize that knowing about him isn’t the same as knowing him.

I suppose I expected you to ask more questions as you got older. Things about what your father looked like, or sounded like, or acted like. The things he loved and the things he hated. I expected you to wonder if the things you were seeing or feeling or thinking came from him. But you never did.

I guess I assumed that you never got curious. That you never would get curious.

In hindsight, I think part of feeling this way was knowing your father. I knew he would not be a good husband at that time. I knew he would not be a good father at that time. On the surface he was too independent, too selfish. But it was the thing that was deeper down that would have really stopped him from being good to us. It was the fact that he was still reeling from losing the other loves of his life. That was the woman and that was the daughter he would have been perfect for. Those were the people he needed to be perfect for.

And I inadvertently assumed that if I wanted to have you without him, live my life without him, that you would, too. I should have known that questions about him rested latent within you. I shouldn’t have been surprised when that message from Eve activated everything. In hindsight, it was silly to think this but I really thought I might be enough for you.

Still, when I saw your eyes light up in front of that computer screen, I was in shock at how quickly, how effortlessly, how simply you gave yourself away to your father. And Eve.

It was in that moment that I realized just how slow I had been to believe that you would need to explore, really explore, this side of you.

Until this moment, I thought of you as an extension of me. When I felt warm and loving and happy with you, I felt warm and loving and happy with myself. When I felt anxious and angry and annoyed with you, I felt anxious and angry and annoyed with myself. When I talked to you, I felt I was talking to myself.

It’s different with the twins. With them, I think about the parts of them that come from Cam. And I love those parts of them. Without your father in our lives, I supposed I felt like you were all mine. But of course you are not. And Silas’s coming into your life forced me to remember that.

If I am being honest, I didn’t know whether to mourn or embrace that truth.



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