Following her to Wolf Valley was the best decision I ever made.Now I have a wife I adore, a daughter who owns my whole damn heart, and a baby boy currently napping upstairs.Life is good.Perfect, actually.
Ella drags me into the spare room that we’ve slowly turned into storage.Boxes are stacked along one wall: Christmas decorations, old uniforms, and keepsakes.The usual.Except now one of the boxes is open, and papers are scattered everywhere.
I immediately recognize them.
Letters.My letters.Suri’s letters.Every single one I’ve ever received from Suri.
“Oh no.”
Ella beams.“I found them!”
I rub a hand over my face.“Baby, we don’t play in Daddy’s boxes.”
“But look!”She grabs one of the envelopes and thrusts it at me.
I freeze.The familiar handwriting hits me right in the chest.Even after all these years, seeing it does something to me.
I take the envelope carefully.
Ella climbs into my lap while I sit on the floor.“What are they?”
I smile.“They’re letters.”
“From who?”
“Your mommy.”
Her eyes get huge.“Mommy wrote you letters?”
“Hundreds of them.”
“Hundreds?”she whispers in awe.
“Yep.”
“Why?”
I laugh.
Jeez, how do I explain this?I could just tell her that she wrote to me when I was in the military, but that would be a disservice to what happened, to what Suri did.
“She wrote to me and saved my life.She gave me something to come home to.She taught me what love looked like.”
“Why?”
“Because Mommy is special.”
Ella considers that.“Did you love Mommy then?”
The question hits me harder than I expected.I look down at the stack of envelopes spread around us.Every dream, every fear, every piece of her heart.She gave all of it to me before I even knew her name.
A smile pulls at my lips.“Yeah.”
Ella blinks.“Really?”
“Really.”
“Before you knew her?”
