“Should I?”
She nodded.
My fingers shook as I opened it.
The letter was dated two weeks before Dorothy died.
Daniel,
I haven’t told you because I don’t know yet whether hope would save you or hurt you. But there is a woman at St. Anne’s who looks like our girl.
She doesn’t know her name.
She doesn’t know me.
But when I told her about the cinnamon rolls, she cried.
I am trying to arrange proper testing.
If I am wrong, forgive me for keeping this from you until I knew.
If I am right, promise me something.
Don’t ask her to become the Melissa we lost.
Meet the Melissa who survived.
I stopped reading.
The words blurred.
Melissa reached across the table and took my hand.
There was one final paragraph.
And there is another envelope in this box for her. She wrote it herself years ago, before Ava was born, after one of our long mother-daughter talks. I never opened it.
