Chapter 43 The Letter She Left Behind

Chapter 43 The Letter She Left Behind
Ivy

My head felt heavy. Alistair’s words from yesterday, about shaping me, about a future, they kept playing. I just wanted to be me, but 'me' seemed to be getting lost in all this 'Zara' stuff.

I was sitting in the big window seat in my room. The sun was out but it didn't feel warm. I picked at a loose thread on the velvet cushion, just pulling it, pulling it.

The door knocked, soft. And I jumped a little.

"Mrs. Hale? Are you awake?" It was Marie, the maid. She always spoke so gently.

"Yes, Marie," I called out, trying to sound okay.

She came in, a small smile on her face. "Good morning. You were sleeping deeply. I brought your tea, and there's this." She held out a thick, yellowed envelope. It looked old. Dusty.

My stomach dropped. Just seeing it, something felt wrong. It wasn't fancy. Just a plain envelope. But the way she held it, carefully, like it was important.

"What is it?" I asked. My voice came out smaller than I wanted.

"It looks like an old letter. It was tucked away in that old jewellery box, the one you asked us to clean out from the back of the closet yesterday. Your things, I think." She wrinkled her nose a tiny bit.

"Oh," I said, taking the letter. It felt heavy in my hand. Not heavy with paper, but heavy with... dread. It was addressed to ‘Zara’. Her handwriting. My mother’s awful, looping handwriting. Even seeing it made my skin crawl.

"Thank you, Marie," I said, trying to push away the bad feelings.

"Of course. Will you be wanting breakfast in here, or downstairs?" she asked, like normal.

"Downstairs is fine. In a bit," I replied. I didn't want anyone else around when I opened this. If I opened this.

She nodded and left, closing the door softly.

I sat there, just staring at the letter. My breath was stuck in my throat. It had been sealed, still. All these years. I didn't know if it was meant for me. For Zara. But it has never been opened. Or maybe it has, and sealed back up. No, it looked truly unopened. Like no one had touched the glue.

Why now? Why did it show up now? Was it a sign? A bad sign?

My fingers trembled as I turned it over and over. I didn't want to open it. I knew what would be inside. I just knew. It would be rotten. Poison. 

But a part of me, the part that wanted to understand Zara, needed to. I needed to know what she ran from. Even though I already knew a lot. I needed to feel it, to see it in black and white. Maybe it would help me understand why she left me, too. Why she left us.

I took a deep breath, smelling the faint dust and old paper. I broke the seal. It made a small tearing sound, like a tiny scream.

I pulled out the folded paper. It was thick, a sort of fancy paper, but the words… they were like daggers. Scratchy and sharp. My mother hadn’t wasted any time.

I read, my eyes flying over the ugly words.

Zara,

I cannot believe you have done this. Come home immediately.

My eyes kept moving, paragraph after paragraph, each one worse than the last. It was all about her. About my father. Never about Zara. Never about what Zara might want or feel.

Your father and I are sick, Zara. How can you abandon us? You owe us everything.

My lip curled. I read that line again. You owe us everything. That was her favourite line. Always. Every time we tried to say no, every time we wanted something for ourselves. "You owe us." Like we were just little things she owned.

She went on. Oh, she went on and on.

Do you know what people are saying? Do you know the shame you’ve brought upon this family?

We raised you. We fed you. We clothed you. And this is how you repay us? By running off like a common street girl?

I could hear her voice in my head, high and whiny, then sharp and cutting. It shifted, always. Sweet one moment, cruel the next. It was a weapon she wielded without even thinking.

Alistair Hale is a powerful man. You had a future, darling. A good one. To just throw it away like this… it’s despicable.

Think of your poor father. His heart, Zara. You are breaking his heart.

We need money, Zara. You know this. This marriage was our only hope. Your only hope.

My jaw clenched. Money. It always came back to money. A marriage to Alistair wasn't Zara's hope, it was theirs. It was their way out of the mess they made, and Zara was the sacrifice. I always knew it, but seeing it written down, so bald, so ugly. It was like a fist to my gut.

She blamed Zara for everything. For their money problems, for their reputation, for her own sickness, for my father's supposed heartbreak. It was all on Zara. All on us.

You are selfish, Zara. A terribly, terribly selfish girl. We sacrificed so much for you. So, so much.

The word "selfish" hit me hard. That was her go to insult. If you did anything for yourself, you were selfish. If you cried, you were selfish. If you wanted to run away, like Zara did, you were truly, unforgivably selfish. Like we weren't allowed to have feelings, to have wants.

I could feel my own breath getting short, my chest tight. It wasn't just Zara's story on this paper. It was mine too. Every cruel word, every twisted thought, I had heard them all a thousand times. They weren't just sent to Zara, they were hammered into both of us.

This letter, it wasn't a plea. It was a weapon. A chain, trying to drag Zara back to the darkness. And Zara… Zara saw it for what it was. She knew she couldn't go back. She couldn't breathe under that weight. She had to run. She had to escape, not just Alistair, but them. Our parents.

It wasn't just about escaping a marriage, it was about escaping a life that tried to eat her whole. And me too. We were both just trying to stay alive.

A surge of defiant anger, hot and sharp, coursed through me. How dare she? How dare she write such things? How dare she ever think she owned us, that we owed her anything but pain and fear?

But beneath the anger, a haunting sadness grew. A deep, aching sadness. Not just for Zara, who had been crushed by these words and this life, but for the child I once was. The child who read these words in her mother’s eyes every day, even when they weren’t written down. The child who believed, for too long, that she truly was selfish, ungrateful, and owed them everything. The child who just wanted to be loved, not owned.

I felt a tear slip down my cheek, then another. But this wasn't just a sad tear. It was an angry tear. It was a tear for the little girl who had to fight so hard, just to dream of being free.