I struck a match and dropped it in.

I stood there in the cold autumn air, just watching twelve years of my daughter’s life turn into black ash. The smell of burning paper mixed with that lavender perfume was thick in the air.

To this day, I still can’t stand the smell of lavender. It just makes me feel sick to my stomach.

The very next afternoon, Carly came over to help me start sorting through her mother’s things. The first thing she asked for when she walked through the door was that box of letters.

“I want to keep them in my apartment, Dad,” she said, looking around the living room. “They’re all I have left of her voice.”

I looked at her sweet, tired face, and I should have just been honest. I should have said, “Carly, I lost my mind with grief and I burned them because the smell was tearing me apart.”

But I was too cowardly for that, I suppose. I didn’t want her to think her old dad was crazy or heartless.

“I can’t find them, honey,” I lied. “I think your mother might have put them somewhere safe before she went into the hospital, and I just don’t know where.”

Carly just stood there and looked at me for a long moment. Her eyes got very quiet, if you know what I mean.

“Oh,” she said. “Okay.”

That was eighteen years ago. And let me tell you, that one little lie became a giant brick wall between us.

Carly stopped calling me just to chat about her day. The weekend visits got shorter and shorter, and then they stopped altogether. Eventually, she moved two states away to North Carolina. She got married, had a daughter of her own, and the only way I knew about any of it was through the Christmas cards she sent.

Polite cards with family photos, mind you, but never a personal note written inside.

I knew I deserved it, of course. A father who loses his daughter’s letters is bad enough, but a father who lies to her face is a whole different story. I lived with that heavy guilt every single day, just sitting alone in this big, quiet house.