EPILOGUE: The Day You Came Home
My name sat at the top of the page in the same slanting hand I would have known anywhere, and my eyes blurred before I had read a single line.
“Monica,
I was afraid you’d read the beginning and think I wanted that life more than ours.
I didn’t.”
I lowered it, overwhelmed, the pages trembling in my hands as the whole house seemed to go still around me.
“Then why didn’t you tell me, Arthur?”
From beside his empty chair, I continued reading, my voice barely louder than a whisper.
“I wanted Maisie to grow up. I wanted to hear her argue about homework and complain about my cooking.
But I never wished Aurora away.
When she was born, I loved her for who she was. Not because she could replace anyone.”
I pictured Arthur carrying infant Aurora around our home, inventing lullabies because he never remembered the real ones, swaying in the dim light with a tiny bundle against his shoulder.
“You certainly loved making a fool of yourself for her,” I whispered.
His next words explained the whole manuscript.
“I wrote about Maisie because I wanted to imagine the things we’d missed.
I wrote about Aurora because I didn’t want to forget the wonderful things we had.
And I wrote about you because, even when we couldn’t talk about everything, I loved the life we made.”
At the bottom, he’d confessed:
“I wish I’d been brave enough to show you.”
I brushed my hand across the words, feeling the faint dents his pen had pressed into the paper.
“You could’ve shown me, you stubborn man.”
Thinking of my own mistake in walking away from Aurora, I reached for the phone. I had already lost too many years to silence, and I did not intend to lose another day.
“Can you come over tomorrow?”
“Is everything okay?”
“Yes. But there’s something in your father’s book I want you to read.”
“Did you find something else?”
“I found something about us.”
She paused before promising to visit after lunch.
“Then I’ll come after lunch.”
The next afternoon, I gave Aurora the final chapters. She read about learning to cycle, ruining the birthday cake, and unknowingly bringing music back into our home, her lips curving and trembling by turns. Tears filled her eyes when she finished Arthur’s letter.
“He remembered all of that?”
“Apparently, your father remembered more than either of us gave him credit for.”
She smiled hesitantly, wiping her cheek with her wrist.
“Do you think he wished Maisie was here instead of me?”
I drew her close, as I should have done when she was six years old and holding a photograph.
“No, sweetheart. He wished both his girls were here.”
She rested against my shoulder, and I felt her breathing slow. I reopened the manuscript and noticed one chapter remained unread.
“There’s one chapter I haven’t read yet.”
The title was The Day You Came Home.
“Did Dad really remember the day I was born that clearly?”
“He forgot where he parked the car that morning,” I said.
Aurora laughed, and I turned the page.
“But I think he remembered everything else.”
She pulled her chair beside mine, and together we began reading.
Disclaimer: This story is a work of fiction inspired by real-life themes. Names, characters, places and events are fictionalized, and any resemblance to real persons is purely coincidental. Images are for illustration purposes only.
