Chapter 24 - Lydia’s Letter
Lydia wrote to me six years after the pool.
She had completed prison and most supervision.
The letter came through Rachel because direct contact restrictions had expired but she chose channel.
Anna,
For years I believed you entered my family and took what belonged to Ethan.
I stopped reading.
Then continued later.
The company was your father’s before it carried our name. I knew that legally, but I told myself my social work and Ethan’s labor made it ours in the way I wanted it to be.
She wrote about money.
The failed investment.
The shame.
The first referral fee she hid.
How easy it became to call undisclosed compensation “what I was owed.”
Then:
I hated your infertility because it gave me a place to put every resentment I could not admit about money.
That line hurt.
She continued.
When you became pregnant, I thought you had invented the one thing that would keep Ethan connected to you and keep me from regaining control. I shoved you because I was angry and because I believed I was entitled to make you stop.
No excuse.
Then:
I am sorry.
She did not ask to see Elise.
That mattered.
She wrote:
I have no right to ask for a granddaughter who knows me only through what I did. If she ever wants information as an adult, I will answer honestly.
I did not reply.
I gave a copy to Ethan.
He cried.
Then folded.
“Do you believe her?”
“I believe she wrote it.”
“Same.”
Lydia moved to North Carolina near a cousin after supervision.
Worked nowhere publicly.
Lived on remaining lawful retirement income.
No board seats.
No charity chair.
No hidden fortune.
May you like
No revenge.
She never met Elise during childhood.
