I sat on the floor of the root cellar for a long time.
With the headphones on.
Listening to the hiss.
I ate that night.
Green beans from a jar. Heated in a dented pot on the wood stove. Rice. Peaches. I ate them straight out of the jar with my fingers. The syrup ran down my chin.
I gave Dutch two cups of dog food in the chipped bowl.
He ate it so fast he choked.
Then he ate two more.
Then he lay down by the stove and fell asleep with his belly full. His stiff leg twitching as he dreamed.
I didn’t open the plum jam.
Not yet.
I wrapped myself in two wool army blankets from the cellar.
I lit a kerosene lantern.
I untied the twine on the bundle of letters.
There were ten envelopes.
Each one had a number on the front.
10.
11.
12.
All the way to 19.
I opened 10.
Happy birthday, baby.
You’re ten. Double digits. I’m sorry I’m not there.
I bet you’re mad at me. For dying. That’s okay. Be mad. I’m mad too.
Here’s something nobody’s going to tell you this year, so I will: it’s okay to miss me so much it hurts. It’s okay to cry in the bathroom at school. It’s okay to sleep with my sweater.
And Wren—if someone tells you to stop being sad, that it’s been long enough, that you need to move on—you don’t have to listen to them.
You get to be sad as long as you need.
— Mom
I remembered.
I was ten. Sandra had been married to my father for two months. She found me sleeping with my mother’s purple sweater.
She took it.
She said, Honey, it’s been over a year. It’s time to move on.
She gave it to the thrift store.
I read 11.
Then 12.
I couldn’t stop.
12: I hope you have a friend. A real one. Just one is enough.
13: Thirteen is hard. Thirteen is the worst. Everybody’s mean at thirteen, including you. Forgive yourself.
14: If your dad hasn’t said he’s proud of you yet this year, I’m saying it for him. I’m so proud of you.
15: Learn to drive in the snow. Turn into the skid. Not away.
16: If anybody makes you feel small, remember Grandma Hazel. She hauled every stone in that cellar from the creek. Alone. At sixty-one.
I opened 17.
Wren.
By now, I bet you’ve figured out that I’m not just writing letters for your birthdays.
I’m writing them because I’m scared about what’s going to happen to you.
I’ve met women like the one your father’s going to marry. I don’t know her name yet. But I know her. I’ve had her in parent-teacher conferences. I’ve had her on the PTA. She’s organized. She’s sure. She’s the kind of woman who comes into a grieving house and says she’s going to fix it.
And she’s going to fix it by getting rid of everything that reminds him of me.
Including you.
I’m sorry, baby. You look just like me. Same chin. Same eyes. Same laugh.
Every time he looks at you, he’s going to see me. And she’s going to hate that.
I put the letter down.
I looked at the fire.
I thought about Sandra. Taking down the pictures. Painting over the yellow. Moving me over the garage.
It’s unhealthy for Ken to live in a shrine.
My mother knew.
Ten years ago. Before she ever met her.
She knew.
I opened 18.
You’re eighteen. You’re an adult.
Margaret Fenn is supposed to contact you this year. About the trust. She’ll send letters. To the house. On your birthday. And every month after.
If you never got them, Wren, it’s because somebody didn’t want you to.
I sat very still.
I never got any letters.
Not on my eighteenth birthday.
Not on my nineteenth.
Not once.
I opened 19.
The last one.
Wren.
You’re nineteen.
The trust is yours now. All of it. Margaret can’t hold it anymore. You don’t need your father’s permission. You don’t need anybody’s.
Here’s what’s in it.
The cabin. The forty acres. The whole ridge.
And my life insurance.
I took out a policy when I got sick. Before your father knew how bad it was. I paid the premiums myself. Out of my teacher’s salary. Thirty-one dollars a month. For eighteen months.
It’s three hundred thousand dollars.
Your father got some of it. Twelve hundred dollars a month. Until you turned eighteen. For your care. For your food and your clothes and your doctor’s appointments and school.
The rest is yours.
Margaret will tell you exactly how much. And she’ll tell you how the twelve hundred a month was spent.
I asked her to keep receipts.
Wren, here’s the last thing.
If they brought you up here, it’s because they think you have nothing. They think you’ll come crawling back down the mountain in a week. Cold and hungry and scared. Willing to do whatever they say.
You don’t have nothing.
You have this cabin. You have this land. You have a cellar full of food that a seventy-year-old man has been restocking every October for ten years because he loved your mother.
You have Grandma Hazel’s stones under your feet.
And you have me.
In every jar. In every letter. In every song.
So eat. Sleep. Stay warm. Wait out the storm.
And when you’re ready, walk down that mountain.
Not crawling.
Walking.
— Mom
P.S. Open the plum jam now, baby. You’ve earned it.
I opened the plum jam.
The lid stuck. Ten years. I had to bang it on the edge of the table. Dutch woke up and barked.
It popped.
The smell.
Sweet. Dark. Summer.
Like the porch of a cabin in September. Like aspens turning gold. Like a kitchen with yellow walls.
I didn’t have bread.
I ate it with a spoon.
Straight out of the jar.
It tasted like being nine.
It tasted like her.
On the fourth day, Dutch led me down the mountain.
