Please don’t spend the rest of your life believing that his choices are proof you failed as a mother.
He is responsible for the man he becomes.
And you are allowed to become someone new, too.
I could barely see the page.
Then came the last lines.
“I have loved you in every house we ever lived in, Leah.
But Hawthorne Ridge is the first home I built with only one question in mind: What would make her feel free?”
I hope the answer is everything.
Forever yours,
Thomas.
I folded the letter carefully.
Eleanor was crying too.
For a long time, neither of us spoke.
Then I looked toward the mountains.
“How much land would the conservation agreement protect?”
“Approximately three hundred acres, subject to final survey.”
“And the rest?”
“It would remain available for appropriate residential and community uses under the applicable rules.”
I looked at the stone outbuilding.
