I laughed again. Walter couldn’t stand that word. “Oh, Walter.”
But the farther I read, the more unsettled I became. He’d imagined an entire life for Rosie. School dances. Arguments. Holidays. Her first apartment. Even her wedding. How long had he been writing this? And why hadn’t he told me?
I carried the manuscript into our bedroom. Walter’s desk stood beside the window, and I’d barely opened it since he died.
“All right, mister. Let’s see what else you’ve been keeping.”
The first drawer held old batteries. In the second I found three notebooks, one containing twelve years of writing notes. Rosie learns to swim. First terrible haircut. Helen teaches her to drive. Near the back, Walter had written: Hid manuscript in couch. Need courage to show Helen. Then I found a sentence he’d underlined. Don’t make her perfect.
Walter hadn’t imagined a daughter who never argued or made mistakes. He’d given Rosie a personality. A life.
I picked up the manuscript and found the wedding chapter. Rosie stood before a mirror while I fastened her dress.
“Mom, you’re making that face.”
“What face?”
“The one you make when you’re trying not to cry.”
Walter had noticed that about me. All those evenings on the couch, he’d been imagining Rosie growing up. But what about Tessa? Our living daughter had grown up right in front of us.
I grabbed my keys. I needed to understand why Walter had written so much about one daughter while leaving the other outside these pages.
Tessa opened her apartment door. “Mom? What’s wrong?”
“Your father wrote something I never knew about.”
She stepped aside. “Come in. I’ll make coffee.”
“Please don’t make that expensive stuff you bought me last time.”
“It’s regular coffee, Mom.”
“It tasted like burnt toast.”
She laughed and went into the kitchen. I laid Walter’s manuscript on the table. Tessa read the title. “Dad wrote this?”
“He did.”
She turned several pages. “About Rosie?”
“About what her life might have been.”
Tessa read quietly before looking up. “I wish he’d shown me.”
“Why?”
“Because I would have liked to know more about her.”
I reached for her hand. “Honey, Rosie was gone before you were born. We didn’t get to know enough about her either.”
“I wasn’t asking you to change that.”
“Then what are you asking?”
Tessa closed the manuscript. “Why was it so hard to talk about her?”
I frowned. “We talked about Rosie.”
“Not really, Mom.”
“That’s not true.”
“When I was six, I found her photograph in Dad’s drawer. Remember?”
I remembered. Rosie in a yellow onesie with ducks, holding Walter’s finger.
“You told me she was my sister,” Tessa continued. “Then you put the photograph away.”
“I didn’t want to upset you.”
“I was six, Mom. I just wanted to know whether she looked like me.”
“Your father and I did our best.”
“I know. But I’m trying to tell you what it felt like, and you keep telling me why you did it.”
I looked away, then stood. “I should go.”
“Mom, please don’t leave because we disagree.”
But I picked up my purse. I wasn’t ready to hear anything else.
Halfway home I pulled into a parking lot. I remembered Tessa at six, holding Rosie’s photograph.
“Would she have played with me?”
“Probably, sweetheart.”
I’d put the picture away, thinking I was protecting her. Now I wondered what she’d understood from my silence. I called her.
“Mom?”
“I shouldn’t have walked out. I’m sorry.”
She was quiet.
“I didn’t like hearing that we made you feel shut out,” I admitted. “But I wasn’t trying to hurt you.”
“I know.”
“I’d still like to hear the rest. Come for dinner tomorrow. We can talk properly.”
After a pause, she agreed. I set down the phone and looked at the manuscript on the passenger seat. I wasn’t finished with it. But I couldn’t keep reading Walter’s words while ignoring my daughter’s.
The next evening Tessa arrived carrying dessert. “I brought pie.”
“I made chicken.”
“Good. I was worried you’d serve the manuscript.”
I laughed and took her coat. Over dinner I set down my fork. “Tell me what you remember about Rosie.”
Tessa looked surprised. “Honestly?”
“Especially honestly.”
She thought a moment. “I remember Dad going quiet every June. And I remember you avoiding the photo albums.”
I nodded. “I couldn’t look at them sometimes.”
“I figured that out when I got older.”
“What did you think when you were little?”
She pushed her potatoes around her plate. “Sometimes I thought you wished our family had turned out differently.”
I reached across the table. “Tessa, we never wished you away.”
“I believe you, Mom. I’m just telling you what it felt like.”
“Then why didn’t you ask us?”
