Chapter 22 - Valerie’s First Letter
Two years after the attack, Valerie wrote from custody.
Not to Leo.
He was too young.
To Dad.
To me.
My therapist screened mine first because I asked.
It began:
Evan,
You prevented me from seriously hurting Leo.
No:
what happened that night.
Direct.
“I hit you with a bat while you were holding him.”
Then:
“For months before that, I lied about why his services were being canceled.”
There.
“I did not want professionals in the house because I felt judged whenever they corrected me.”
Then:
“I told myself everyone else was exaggerating his disability. In reality, I was minimizing it because I did not want my life to change.”
That sentence mattered.
Then:
“I was planning to leave your father and was ashamed of that, so I turned Leo into the explanation for every choice I was afraid to admit.”
No request for forgiveness.
At the end:
“You do not owe me an answer.”
May you like
I did not write back.
Accountability can arrive without reopening a relationship.
