Page 37 of Clashing Moon

Mom

Finally, I reached the envelope marked for my eighteenth birthday. The card was more sophisticated, with an elegant tree on the front and the wordsHappy Birthday.

Inside, she had written the longest message of all, one that held truths I hadn’t known I’d been searching for.

Dear Arabella, today you turn eighteen. It’s a special birthday, one where you’re growing into yourself and seeing the world through new eyes. And because of that, I feel it’s time to tell you the truth.

As I’m sure you know, I left when you were three. I know that must be hard to read, but I want you to understand why. Back then, I was struggling. It started when I broke my leg in three places after your father pushed me down the stairs. What was supposed to be a temporary painkiller became a killer in a whole different way. Soon, I found myself in a dark place, a place I didn’t want to be in but couldn’t escape from. I was addicted and not strong enough to ask for help.

One night, your father found the pills I’d bought illegally. I confessed that I’d become reliant upon them and didn’t know how to stop. I told him I’d been getting the pills from some shady people. Your father was not forgiving. He gave me a choice—leave town and never come back, or he’d turn me into the police. He wanted to protect you, he said, from a drug-crazed lunatic. It crushed me to leave, but I was in the throes of addiction and not thinking right. So, I agreed. I left.

Leaving was the hardest choice I ever made. At the time, I was so strung out and afraid I wasn’t capable of making a rational decision. It is no excuse, but your father’s threats frightened me. I thought you would be better off without me. It took me another two years after I left to finally get help and get sober. When I finally woke up from my drug-induced oblivion, I realized it was too late to try to get you back. I hoped and believed you were better off without me. But I never stopped loving you. I’m here now, waiting and hoping that one day you’ll find me. My porch light is always on.

Since I got help, I’m proud to say I have never once relapsed. I recently earned my fifteen-year chip. I’ve spent every day of my sobriety helping other addicts in one way or another. I wish I could tell you it feels like the good guys are winning, but every day I wake to another person who’s lost their life due to opioids. Still, I keep on fighting. Despite everything, I’ve never lost my will to try to make the world better and to give back.

I have a life that’s meaningful and filled with love. But nothing—no place or purpose—has ever filled the part of my heart that belongs to you.

Now that you’re old enough to decide on your own whether I’m worthy to be in your life, I wanted to reach out one last time to tell you I’m here if you ever want to reach out. That said, I won’t blame you if you want nothing to do with me. I hated myself for what I did to you. I still do. Forgiveness of others seems easier than it is for myself. But if you can forgive me, now that you’re an adult, you can reach me at this number. 423-555-1785.

With all my love forever,

Mom

As I read, tears streamed down my face. I’d spent so many years thinking she had chosen to leave me. That she’d disappeared, not wanting to be found. But I’d had it all wrong.He’d abused her and then sent her away. How had I not suspected this of my father? He’d proven himself cruel my entire life. Why wouldn’t I have at least asked questions?

And why had my father left these in a box instead of just tossing them out when they arrived?

These were questions I would most likely not get answers to.

I hugged the letter to my chest, feeling the ache of both what I’d lost and what I’d found. Somewhere, she had been waiting for me, hoping I would understand. And now I had to try.

I closed my eyes, pressing my lips together as it all sank in. This woman, who had disappeared from my life without explanation, who I’d been told wanted nothing to do with me, had remembered me every single year. Every single birthday. She had cared. More than cared. She’d loved me desperately.

I ran my fingers over the words, wondering what her hand looked like as she wrote. Did she have painted nails? A favorite hand lotion?

The truth was clear to me now. My mother had been forced to leave. Her addiction, the threats, my father’s ultimatum—all of it unfolded in painful detail on the page.

“I’m sorry, Mom,” I whispered. “I’m sorry he stole you from me.”

As if she could hear me.

I hugged the last card to my chest, pressing it against my heart, reeling, scrambling to make sense of what I’d just read. The sadness and desperation in the words on those pages crippled me. How hard it must have been for her, knowing I was only hours away but not able to see me. She must have been terrified of my father to have stayed away after she got sober. She’d stopped writing after I turned eighteen—given up, thinking I didn’t want to hear from her. Or perhaps she’d predicted my father would never have shown them to me, accepting that it was a fight she could not win.

The tragedy of that rendered me inconsolable. I rocked, still holding the card, and let the tears come. In my state of shock and grief, I tried to conjure an image of her before she’d been taken from me, but nothing came.

It was Rafferty’s voice that pulled me back to reality.

“Arabella?”

“I’m in the attic,” I yelled down to him.

I heard his footsteps on the stairs as he came up to the attic. He stopped in the entryway when he saw me sitting there, probably tear-streaked and definitely still clutching the card to my chest.

“Arabella? What is it?”

“My mother.”

Rafferty crossed the room, crouching beside me and picking up one of the envelopes and looking at the name and address. “Sally Collins. These were from your mom?”

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