sending them after the eighth one came back unopened.”
My mother took them with shaking hands.
My father stared at the envelopes. “I never saw these.”
“They were returned from this address.”
My mother turned one over, her brow furrowing. “This says ‘refused.’”
“Yes.”
My father stood. “I didn’t refuse them.”
The room changed again.
Not dramatically. No thunder. No music.
Just a quiet shift, like a door opening somewhere in the walls.
My mother looked at him. “Then who did?”
He did not answer.
Leo watched us all, his water untouched.
“Maybe the mail carrier made a mistake,” my father said, but even he did not sound convinced.
“Eight times?” I asked.
He sank back into the chair.
For a while, no one spoke.
Then my mother reached for the first letter and unfolded it. Her eyes moved across the page. I remembered writing it at a kitchen table
