“Polly?” I venture.
Ethan slides something toward me. It’s an open envelope, a piece of folded paper sticking out of it. Ethan’s address is written neatly on the front, and the return address on the back…
“This says Polly Sanders,” I say slowly.
“Just read it,” Ethan says with a bitter laugh.
I almost don’t want to. Slowly, I slide the letter out of the envelope and scan it. My mouth drops open. I don’t know whether to be impressed, shocked or angry at this woman’s audacity.
Dear Ethan,
It’s been a long time. There’s a lot that I need to say to you, starting with several apologies that I know will never be enough. I’ve been keeping track of time, and I know our daughter will be eleven soon. That means it’s been over ten years that I’ve been absent from your lives. I have a lot to make up for.
I should have written sooner, but I was too much of a coward. I was scared of what you’d say. You have every right to be angry with me. You’ve probably even noticed that my last name has changed; I got married three years ago. I’m sure a lot has changed in this time for you and Lily, too.
I missed you so much. I know I don’t have the right to say that, but I did. And I thought of Lily all the time. I abandoned her, and I know that couldn’t have been easy on either of you.
But I want to make up for it. Please give me one more chance to be the mother to Lily that I should have been from the moment she was born. Please let me meet my daughter and see how much she has grown. I understand if you don’t want to allow this, but I am her mother, and I do have the right to see her. Please give me your blessing, it would mean so much.
My number is (862) 945-0019. When you’ve made your decision, please call me. I’m sorry that this has come out of the blue. But it’s time that I step up to the plate and be there for both of you, like I should have been before.
Yours,
Polly
“What the fuck?” I say blankly.
Ethan snorts.
“That was my reaction,” he says. “I don’t even know what to do about it.”
“I’d tell her just where to go,” I say furiously. “She has no right to show up after ten years, and start making all these demands! She wants to see Lily? Well, maybe Lily doesn’t want to see the mother that abandoned her!”
“Lily…will want to see her,” Ethan sighs.
I deflate. He’s not wrong. Lily has been asking, recently, about her mother. Ethan has tried to avoid it as much as possible, but he’s also known that his daughter has a right to know the truth. So, on occasion, he’ll muddle painfully through stories about his relationship with Polly. Lily knows full well that her mother ran off, but that hasn’t stopped the fascination she has with knowing more about her other parent. If Polly does show up, Lily will want to meet her at least once.
And Lily has the right to that.
It’s just…so irritating! Over ten years, and now she chooses to show up! And, even worse, is the fact that Ethan obviously isn’t as over what happened between them as he should be. The very fact that he took to the bottle as soon as he got this letter proves this. He never got any closure when Polly left; all he got from her was a note telling him that she was leaving, and opposition from her family when he tried to figure out what was going on. At some point, her mother had stiffly brought over the divorce papers that Polly had already signed, and that was that. Ethan received everything in the divorce; the house, the furniture, even their accounts, as though Polly simply wanted nothing to do with him at all.
After that, he spent the next ten years strug
gling to raise their daughter on his own. I shake my head. I remember standing at Ethan’s side the year before Lily was born, as he married Polly, his long-time girlfriend, struggling not to be jealous. He had been so happy. Yet a year later, it had all completely fallen apart.
Now she’s back. My first impulse is to write her back myself and tell her to fuck off. Ethan and Lily have been doing well without her. They don’t need her back in their lives. All she does is cause pain wherever she goes, and it’s going to be worse now that she’s arriving with a brand new last name and demanding to meet her daughter who she was okay not seeing for ten years.
There’s nothing good about any of that.
I sigh. At the end of the day, though, it isn’t my right to get rid of Polly. Only Ethan can do that. And I have the sinking feeling that, for his daughter’s sake, he won’t.
Chapter Seven
Ethan
The moment I read the letter, several emotions went through me.
Anger, because how dare she. If she had sent a letter like this ten, nine, maybe even eight years ago, I would have jumped at the chance to see her again. But time passed by and it became clear she was never coming back. I still don’t know why she left the way she did. I don’t know why her family look at me with such disgust that they refuse to see Polly’s daughter other than at Christmas and on her birthday, leaving her with no real extended family after my mother passed away five years ago. But I put it all behind me to focus on Lily. Yet now she wants to come back? Over my dead body!