Chapter 8: Every Birthday He Missed
By the time they reached Evelyn’s house, the porch light was on and the evening air had cooled enough to raise gooseflesh on Jason’s arms. Maya went straight to the hall closet.
“I’m getting my birth certificate.”
Evelyn set her keys on the entry table. “It’s in the folder on the top shelf.”
“I know.”
Maya reached past the folder, moving aside a stack of towels. Something small and metal scraped against the wall. She pulled out an old sewing tin, its painted roses faded nearly white.
Evelyn’s face tightened. “That’s just junk.”
Maya looked at her. “Then you won’t mind if I move it.”
She lifted the lid. Inside lay a few tangled spools of thread, a pair of blunt scissors, and a bundle of envelopes tied with a ribbon gone gray with age. The top envelope had Maya’s name on it in Jason’s handwriting.
He knew the slant of those letters. He knew the way his J dipped under the line. For a moment, the hallway seemed to tilt around him.
“I mailed those,” he said. “Every year. To this house.”
Maya picked up the first envelope. Her thumb traced the unbroken flap.
“You never opened them?”
“No.”
She turned the envelope over, checking the postmark. Then she looked at the others, all addressed to her, all sealed.
Jason recognized the stamps, the dates, the return address from the apartment he’d rented after taking the job out of state. He had written those cards at kitchen tables and in break rooms, trying to sound cheerful even when the words wouldn’t come easily.
Maya gathered them against her chest.
“Can I read these alone?”
Jason swallowed. “Of course.”
She carried the tin down the hall and shut her bedroom door.
The soft click left Jason facing Evelyn in the entryway. Between them, the closet stood open, its towels disturbed, its secrets exposed.
“You kept them,” he said.
“I did.”
The answer came without hesitation. That made it worse.
Evelyn’s hand moved toward the tin, then stopped. “I thought if she read them, she’d start asking when you were coming back. And then you’d come for her.”
“I could have answered her questions myself.”
“You were a plane ticket away. I was the one putting her to bed.”
Jason wanted to say that wasn’t the point. The words crowded his mouth, sharp and useless. Behind Maya’s closed door, paper rustled.
Evelyn lowered her voice. “I thought you’d take her and I’d never see her again.”
“So you made sure she thought I didn’t want her.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to. You hid the cards.”
Evelyn’s eyes shone, but she didn’t look away. “I was afraid.”
Jason stared at her. Her fear didn’t undo the lie. It only gave it a shape.
From Maya’s room came a drawer opening, then closing. Jason pictured her on the floor with the envelopes spread around her, deciding whether each one deserved to be opened.
Evelyn turned toward the kitchen. “She doesn’t need this made worse.”
Jason stepped between her and the hall. “She gets to decide what she needs.”
For a moment, neither of them moved. Then Evelyn’s shoulders dropped, and she went into the kitchen without another word.
Jason stayed by the closet. He did not knock on Maya’s door. He did not call through it that she could stop whenever she wanted. She had asked for privacy, and he had promised it.
The minutes stretched. A cabinet shut in the kitchen. A car passed outside with music thumping faintly through its windows. Jason watched the hallway clock tick forward, each second another birthday he hadn’t witnessed.
At last Maya opened her door.
The cards were stacked in her arms, some opened now, their envelopes creased. Her face was blotchy around the eyes, but her voice was steady.
“I read them.”
Jason nodded. “Okay.”
“Some of them are funny.”
“I was trying.”
“You told me you tried to bake a cake in a toaster oven.”
“It was a bad idea.”
A small, pained breath escaped her. It wasn’t quite a laugh. She looked down at the cards, then back toward the closet.
“There was something else in the tin.”
Jason followed her gaze.
Maya pulled a folded card from between two envelopes. A school portrait was tucked inside: her at eleven, hair clipped back, chin lifted with the wary seriousness of a child told to smile. On the back, in uneven handwriting, were the words: Do you like my picture? Grandma said she’d mail it. Did you get it?
Jason’s chest tightened. He had never seen it.
Maya held the card out to him. For a second, he thought she might take it back. Then she placed it in his hand.
“This is the one I wanted you to answer most,” she said.
He looked at the little photograph, at the girl he had missed, at the question preserved in ink.
May you like
Maya’s eyes searched his face.
“Why didn’t you ever write back?”
