She had not meant to tear the letter. At least that was the explanation she gave herself later. She had folded it too hard, pulled at a corner, and watched a narrow split widen across the old paper. Then, panicking, she had ripped the sheet through the center, leaving two uneven pieces. She hid them between the couch cushions beneath an old knitted throw, thinking she would tape them together in the morning. But each morning she was afraid to face what she had done. By Tuesday afternoon, the torn letter had become a secret she couldn't undo.
When she heard Maya coming down the stairs, Tessa reacted without thinking. She shoved the fragments farther into the seam of the sofa and pressed both hands hard against the fabric. The motion was too quick, too deliberate. Maya stopped in the doorway. For a moment neither girl spoke. Then Tessa straightened and said she needed to finish her homework. She walked past Maya without looking at her, leaving a small white corner visible against the gray upholstery.
Maya crossed the room slowly. She could still hear her stepsister on the stairs, moving fast enough to suggest she wanted to get away. At first Maya thought the white edge belonged to a receipt. She lifted the corner of the knitted throw and found two pieces of cream stationery pushed into the sofa seam. One was folded into a tight square, the other creased across the middle. Both smelled faintly of the lavender soap Claire used to keep in her linen drawer. Maya recognized the looping capital M before she saw any words.
She sat on the rug with the torn pieces trembling in her hands. There were words missing where the rip ran through the page. She could read, My sweetest Maya, and then farther down, When the time comes that you wonder whether you have a place here. Another line began, Marcus did not marry me just to become your father. The second half of the sentence was on the other scrap, bent backward. Maya struggled to match the edges, but her eyes kept going back to those first words. Marcus did not marry me just to become your father. What did it mean? Had Claire been trying to warn her that Marcus had never wanted the job? Had she known something that Maya didn't?
A car pulled into the driveway. Maya barely noticed. She was staring at two torn halves of a letter from the only person who had always known what to say to her. The tears came slowly, without sound, until one fell onto the handwriting and she snatched the paper away to keep the ink safe. She pressed the fragments together against the cushion, her lips moving as she tried to read the unfinished sentence. For the first time since the funeral, she felt angry at Claire too. Why leave a message that could be broken? Why trust adults to tell the truth afterward?