Instead, he placed it unopened in a drawer.
Three months passed.
Then Emily came home for Thanksgiving.
She was twenty now.
Confident.
Funny.
Independent in ways that sometimes startled him.
She found the letter accidentally while looking for batteries.
“What’s this?”
Daniel saw it in her hand.
His stomach tightened.
“You don’t have to read that.”
She looked at the envelope.
“Is it from her?”
“Yes.”
“You read it?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
Daniel shrugged.
“I didn’t need anything from her.”
Emily sat on the edge of the desk.
“What if I do?”
Daniel studied his daughter.
For years, he had made decisions for her because she was a child.
Now she was an adult.
“That’s your decision.”
Emily opened the envelope.
Daniel moved toward the door.
“You can have privacy.”
“Stay.”
He stayed.
The letter was four pages.
Emily read silently.
Her expression barely changed.
When she finished, she placed the pages on the desk.
Daniel waited.
“Well?”
Emily stared at them.
“She says she’s sorry.”
Daniel said nothing.
“She says she was angry at you.”
He nodded.
“She says she took it out on me.”
Another nod.
“She says she thought if I weren’t around, you would love her differently.”
Daniel closed his eyes for a moment.
“I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“That you ever had to be part of that.”
Emily continued.
“She says she knows she doesn’t deserve forgiveness.”
Daniel pulled a chair closer.
“What do you think?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t have to know today.”
Emily folded the letter.
“Do you forgive her?”
Daniel had wondered that himself.
For years, people occasionally asked him.
Reporters.
Counselors.
Friends.
He never liked the question.
It treated forgiveness like a courtroom verdict.
Guilty or forgiven.
Yes or no.
Life was not that clean.
“I don’t spend much time being angry at her anymore.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
“I know.”
Emily waited.
Daniel chose his words carefully.
“I don’t need her to suffer for me to be okay.”
Emily nodded slowly.
“But?”
“But forgiveness doesn’t require me to pretend what happened was acceptable. And it doesn’t require you to let her back into your life.”
Emily looked at the letter.
“I don’t want to see her.”
“Then don’t.”
“Is that mean?”
“No.”
“What if she really changed?”
Daniel leaned forward.
“Someone changing does not create an obligation for the people they hurt.”
Emily absorbed that.
“She asked if she could write again.”
“What do you want?”
“I think…”
She hesitated.