Chapter 8 - The Letter I Could Not Open for Seven Days

I carried my mother’s letter for a week without opening it.

It went from Lena’s office to my backpack, from my backpack to June’s kitchen counter, then to the drawer beside my bed. Every night I checked that it was still there.

Every morning I ignored it.

Brick never asked.

June asked once whether I wanted her to put it somewhere else.

“No.”

“All right.”

That was all.

The Brookside investigation kept moving while my life stalled around an envelope.

Dr. Venn resigned from his position but denied wrongdoing. Through his attorney, he blamed Lorraine Pike for inaccurate reporting and called Hasker’s alleged conduct “a tragic breach of policy by one employee.”

Lena did not believe the one-employee story.

Neither did anyone who had seen the spreadsheets.

But criminal charges required proof of who knew what and when.

Mara explained it while we walked Atlas along the river trail.

“Institutions are good at spreading responsibility thin,” she said. “Everybody owns five percent of the bad decision, so nobody feels responsible for the whole thing.”

“Then how do you prove anything?”

“You follow documents. Money. Emails. Patterns.”

“Sounds slow.”

“It is.”

I kicked a chunk of ice into the river.

“Being a kid is slow too.”

She laughed.

School improved. Mr. Bell still left food near me without making it a charity performance. A girl named Tori invited me to sit with her group at lunch and did not mention motorcycles once.

On Thursday, she asked why I always wore new boots but carried an old torn backpack.

“Priorities,” I said.

She nodded as if that made perfect sense.

That night, Jonah called from Bozeman.

His emergency foster parents had a twelve-year-old daughter who kept beating him at Mario Kart.

“Humiliating,” he said.

“You deserve it.”

He grew quiet.

“They asked if I’d stay longer.”

“That’s good.”

“Yeah.”

But his voice cracked.

We both knew good things were scary because they created something to lose.

After the call, I opened my mother’s letter.

It began with I am sorry.

I almost stopped there.

I forced myself to continue.

She did not ask me to forgive her. She did not say the state stole me or that addiction made everything not her fault. She wrote that after Dad died, she started taking pills from an old injury because sleeping was easier than being awake. Then pills became whatever she could get. She lost jobs. Missed appointments. Lied to social workers. Left me with people who were not safe enough because she was not safe enough herself.

She wrote that disappearing had not been one decision.

It had been hundreds of cowardly decisions made one day at a time.

That line made me cry.

I hated her for writing something true.

She said she entered treatment after waking in a motel bathroom and realizing she could not remember my face clearly.

She had been sober twenty-two months.

She included a phone number.

No pressure.

No promise.

Only: If you ever want to hear my voice, I will answer.

I walked into the kitchen holding the letter.

June looked up from a crossword puzzle.

“I want to call her.”

She put down the pencil.

“Okay.”

“But I don’t want to be alone.”

“Okay.”

“And I don’t want Brick here.”

“Okay.”

The consistency of her answers made my throat ache.

We sat at the kitchen table. I dialed the number before I could change my mind.

It rang twice.

A woman answered.

“Hello?”

My mother’s voice was older.

That was the first thing I noticed.

Not different.

Older.

I could hear traffic behind her.

I said nothing.

She said hello again.

Then very softly, “Eli?”

My hand tightened around the phone.

“How did you know?”

Her breath broke.

“Because nobody else makes me that afraid to answer.”

I closed my eyes.

For a minute, neither of us spoke.

Then I asked the question I had carried since I was twelve.

“Why didn’t you come back?”

She cried quietly before answering.

“Because every month I stayed away made coming back harder. And because I was ashamed. And because shame is selfish when you use it as an excuse.”

I looked at June.

She was staring down at her hands.

“Do you want me back?” I asked.

My mother took so long to answer that I thought the call had dropped.

“Yes,” she said. “But wanting you does not mean I get to have you. You’re not a thing I misplaced.”

Something inside me cracked open.

We talked for nineteen minutes.

I did not call her Mom.

I did not say I loved her.

When we hung up, I felt worse and better at the same time.

The next morning, Lena called.

Investigators had recovered part of the hard drive missing from Lorraine Pike’s laptop.

On it was an email chain between Pike and Dr. Venn.

The oldest message was eight months before I ran.

The subject line read:

Restraint numbers before state review.

May you like

[COMPLETED] “GET YOUR HANDS OFF MY DRESS! YOU’RE NOTHING BUT AN OLD SEAM...

[COMPLETED] At the Mafia Boss's Engagement Party, I Served His Hungry So...

[COMPLETED] The Mafia Boss’s Fiancée Tried to Dismiss His Father’s Loyal...

And in Dr. Venn’s reply were six words that changed the case:

Make the report match the contract.