After twelve years of loving, helping, driving, paying, and showing up, my stepchildren told me, “You’re not the one who raised us.” So I finally stopped being the woman they only needed when life got hard. When they asked where I went, their mother knew the truth.

He placed the envelope on the low brick wall beside us.

“I don’t know how to fix this family,” he said.

I looked at him for a long moment.

“That’s because I was the repair.”

Then I went inside.

I read Lily’s letter later. I told myself I would throw it away, but I made tea and opened it at my kitchen table.

Her handwriting was the same looping script I continue reading …