One was slightly longer than the other.
A note was attached.
My hands aren’t as steady as they used to be. Your father says they look perfectly fine, but your father has never been a reliable judge of knitting. Wear them when you work late. Love, Mum.
Daniel held the socks in his lap.
Sophie had stopped sorting photographs.
“Why didn’t she send them?” she asked.
Daniel looked at the chest.
He could have told her that her grandmother was stubborn, that their family had always been proud, that the argument had become something neither of them knew how to end.
Instead, he said, “I think she hoped I’d come and get them.”
Sophie watched him.
“Why didn’t you?”
He did not answer.
Chapter Four: What Margaret Never Said
Daniel opened the envelope that evening.
Thomas had gone to bed, and Emily had taken Sophie home. The house was quiet except for the refrigerator motor and the ticking of the clock above the kitchen doorway.
Margaret’s letter was written on three sheets of stationery, the kind she used for birthday notes and thank-you cards.
The first page began without ceremony.
Dear Daniel,
I have started this letter several times, and I am not sure whether I will be any better at finishing it today.
You have always believed that I was angry about the money. I was angry, certainly, but not for the reason you think.
When your father and I gave you our savings, we understood there was a risk. We had talked about it. We knew the business might fail. What frightened me was watching you become so ashamed that you could no longer bear to sit at our table.
Daniel stopped reading.
He remembered the day he had told his parents that the firm was bankrupt. Margaret had been making dinner. He had stood beside the refrigerator, explaining the debts in the careful language of someone trying not to panic.
Thomas had asked practical questions. Margaret had remained silent.
Daniel had mistaken her silence for judgment.
The letter continued.
I was angry because you wouldn’t let us help you afterward. You stopped answering your father’s calls. You refused the job his friend offered you. You spoke to us as though we were creditors rather than your parents.
I said things I regret. I know that.
But I need you to understand something. We never thought you were a failure. We thought you were our son, who had made a terrible mistake and was frightened of coming home.
Daniel rested the paper on the table.
There were two more pages.
He read them slowly.
Margaret wrote about the first Christmas he missed. She had cooked too much food because she did not know how to prepare a holiday meal for three people after so many years of cooking for four. She had set his place out of habit, then left it there because removing it felt worse.
