Elly was celebrating her 18th birthday, along with her father, Ralph, her everything. She was a newborn when her mother, Laurie, and her father. She received a package from her mother.
Her father was everything Elly got. Since her mother abandoned them when she was a newborn, her paternal grandparents and father was only parents she had. Her maternal grandparents would send her money occasionally, but that was it.
One day Laurie tried to return their lives, but Ralph couldn’t accept it. Laurie apologized, and tried to explain that she was only 16 when she was pregnant and her parents made the call and take her away, Ralph again only shook his head.
Elly thought that her father was 16 too, but he kept stayed in her life. She decided to support her father and stayed with him. Laurie didn’t stop in there. She always called them and tried to reconnect but they wouldn’t accept her.
In one phone talk, “You don’t understand the guilt I’ve lived with,” Laurie said to them. “Staying away from you was the hardest thing I’ve ever done.”
One day, Ralph wanted to talk with Elly, and revealed that Laurie had passed away. Then Ralph stated that Elly should open the package she refused to open.
Then she prayed to Laurie’s soul. She wished that the interior of the package may give her some insight to her actions.
She found a novel in there along with a stack of papers. In the cover of the novel, a young girl was sitting under a starry night. The picture was familiar to her. It was a story about Elly, written by a person who never witnessed her life.
Laurie explained that she didn’t leave them by choice, as she was in love with Ralph, and always loved more than anything her daughter, Elly. Her rich family forced her to do things she couldn’t found the power to protest.
Her parents forced Laurie to marry a man because they believed that it would be more appropriate for their family.
Then Laurie revealed that her husband helped her to find her confidence, and became an author.
What Elly was holding in her hands was not an apology letter, but it was a bridge to help her understand her mother’s perspective.
She was talking about the pain she felt after losing her daughter and the man she loved. The stack of papers were there because Laurie wanted her daughter to receive the royalties of the book, and all rights of it.
When Elly finished the letter her mother wrote to her, the paper was wet.
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