They didn't talk much on the way down. The December coast was gray and flat, and Saraphina sat with a wooden box on her lap and looked out the window for most of the 2-hour drive. The box contained 23 letters tied in order with a piece of brown twine. Each envelope was addressed for Anelise. She had called Sandra Ward the day before.
The conversation had been short and careful. In the end, Sandra had said she knows you're coming. Whether she comes to the door is her decision. That was all Saraphina had asked for. Malik parked half a block from the ward house and turned off the engine.
You don't have to wait, Saraphina said. I know, he said, and settled back in his seat. She looked at him for a moment. Then she picked up the box, got out of the car, and walked down the street alone. Anelise answered the door herself.
She looked at Saraphina with an expression that was not warm and not closed. But somewhere in the careful middle territory of a person who had decided to hear something out before deciding how to feel about it, Saraphina held out the box. "These are for you," she said. "One for every year. You don't have to read them.
You don't have to do anything with them. But I wanted you to have them because I wrote them for you and they belong to you. " Analise looked at the box, but didn't take it immediately. The letter from the year you were born. Saraphina said, "I wrote twice. Once in the spring when you arrived, once in December when I realized I wasn't going to make it through the year without writing again. " She paused.
I was 25. I had no power and no money and a family that had decided your existence was a problem to be managed. I have spent every year since then becoming someone who could fight that. I'm sorry it took this long. Analise was quiet.
"I'm not here to ask you to choose anything. " Saraphina said, "You have a family. You have parents who love you, and I'm not here to complicate that. I just needed you to know that you were never," her voice held. "But only just. You were never unwanted.
Not for a single day. " The wind off the harbor moved between them, cold and salt sharp. Analyze reached out and took the box. She held it for a moment, looking down at it. Then she looked up at Saraphina, the same assessing look Malik had noticed the first day in the community center, taking things apart to see if they were structurally sound. The scholarship, she said.