I picked up one of the envelopes, turning it over in my hands. The postmark was from August 1983. I remembered writing that letter. I remembered sitting on the floor of my bedroom, crying because I thought I’d lost him. I had blamed myself for years. I thought I wasn’t enough.

“There’s more,” he said, pointing to the bottom of the box.

I dug down, pushing past the stack of my own letters. My heart skipped a beat when I pulled out an envelope that didn’t belong. It was a heavy, cream-colored stationery that my mother used to keep in her desk.

The envelope was addressed to Wayne’s mother in Dayton. It had been opened, the flap torn jaggedly, as if someone had been in a hurry to see what was inside. I pulled out the single sheet of paper inside.

It was my mother’s handwriting. I knew those sharp, slanted loops better than my own.

“Dear Mrs. Pruitt,” I read aloud, my voice trembling. “My daughter has moved on and is engaged to a local boy. She has no interest in your son. Please tell him to stop sending these letters. It is only making things harder for her to move forward. Do not contact us again.”

The room went completely silent. The only thing I could hear was the hum of the air conditioner and the distant sound of traffic on the highway. I looked at the letter, then at the stack of returned envelopes, then at Wayne.

My mother had taken my mail. She had intercepted his. She had played us against each other for no reason other than her own pride, her own twisted idea of what was best for me. She had sat at our kitchen table, drinking coffee, telling me he didn’t love me, all while she was holding his letters in her purse.

“She did this,” I said, my voice rising. “She did this to us.”

Wayne didn’t say anything. He just watched me. I looked over at the casket, at Carol, who was only a few years younger than me. She had been there that summer. She had watched me cry. Had she known? Had she been in on it?

I felt a surge of rage so intense it was like fire in my veins. I looked at the letter again. My mother had been dead for ten years, and I had spent every one of those years mourning her as if she were a saint. I had kept her photo on my mantel. I had told everyone what a wonderful, supportive woman she was.

“I need to go,” I said, stumbling back. My head was spinning.

“Margaret, wait,” Wayne said, reaching out to touch my arm, but I pulled away.

“I can’t,” I said. “I just need to breathe.”

I walked out of the funeral home and into the blinding afternoon sun. The heat of the pavement felt good against the soles of my shoes. I stood by my car in the parking lot, gasping for air, clutching that letter in my hand.

I remembered how my mother used to watch me. She would sit in her rocking chair, watching me stare out the window, and she would say, “He’s not coming back, honey. You need to focus on what’s right in front of you.”

I thought she was protecting me. I thought she was helping me get over the heartbreak. But she wasn’t protecting me. She was orchestrating my life. She was pruning me like a rosebush, cutting away anything she didn’t approve of.

I looked down at the letter again. It was dated July 15th, 1983. That was the day after I had sent my first letter to his new address in Dayton. She hadn’t even waited. She had intercepted it, read it, and mailed her own response that same afternoon.

I stood there for a long time, watching the cars go by, feeling the weight of forty years pressing down on me. I realized then that I had lived a life based on a lie. I had married Ronald because I thought Wayne was gone. Ronald was a good man, and I had loved him, but it wasn’t the same. It wasn’t the life I had chosen.