A minute later, she wrote: I told him. He nodded.
I spent that night sitting at the kitchen table with the shoebox. I read every single letter. All nineteen sealed ones and the four I’d opened. It took me until almost three in the morning. Some of them were long and full of stories. Some were just a few lines. One, from the motel in Kingston, was barely legible, and the handwriting slanted down the page, and I knew he had been drinking when he wrote it. It said, I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, buddy, over and over until the bottom of the page.
The last letter, from the shelter in Poughkeepsie, said only: I’m not okay right now. I’m going to stop writing until I am. I don’t want you to get letters from me like this. I’ll come back when I’m better. I promise.
