Then another letter.
Lorna,
I dreamed about Mom last night and woke angry at all of us.
I still don’t know if you asked Arden to write to me or if he decided for both of you.
Either way, I suppose silence became easier than risking another answer.
That hurt.
Because while Maelis spent decades believing Lorna had rejected her, Lorna spent those same decades believing Maelis had chosen permanent silence.
The tragedy was not that one sister refused reconciliation.
It was that both thought the other had.
And someone—almost certainly their mother—had made sure of it.
Lorna died never knowing.
That was the part I could not repair.
I sat in my study one night holding Maelis’s letters and spoke aloud to a woman gone thirty-four years.
“I’m sorry.”
No answer.
Of course.
Maeve came with Ellie the next day.
I returned the letters.
“I think Evelyn wrote the rejection.”
Maeve looked at me.
“You’re sure?”
“No.”
“Then don’t say it like you are.”
She was right.
“I think she did.”
“Why?”
I explained.
Reputation.
Access.
Stationery.
