Madison covered her mouth.
“You’re serious?”
“Oh, yes,” Mrs. Alvarez said.
“Your mother had very strong opinions about gardening.”
Dad’s face changed.
For the first time that night, he smiled without strain.
“She certainly did.”
“And tomatoes.”
Dad nodded.
“Especially tomatoes.”
Mrs. Alvarez laughed.
“She insisted everyone planted them too close together.”
“That sounds like Helen,” Dad said.
I looked again at the envelope.
“How long did you write to each other?”
“Almost four years.”
I felt strangely off balance.
There had been an entire friendship attached to my life that I had never known existed.
“Why didn’t she tell me?”
Mrs. Alvarez considered that.
“I asked her once.”
“And?”
“She said, ‘Claire spends her life carrying responsibilities.
I don’t want to turn kindness she gave freely into another thing she has to carry.’”
That was Mom too.
Completely.
Painfully.
I ran my thumb over the edge of the envelope.
