Mr. Harris.
He looked at me.
“That’s me.”
There were six letters in Isabella’s handwriting.
None had stamps.
None had ever been mailed.
Mr. Harris opened the first.
Sophie leaned against me while he read silently.
Halfway down the page, he stopped.
“What does it say?” I asked.
He swallowed.
“She wrote it after she left.”
His eyes moved back to the page.
Then he read one line aloud.
“I don’t know if you still hate me.”
Mr. Harris lowered the letter.
“I didn’t hate her.”
Nobody said anything.
“I was 16,” he continued. “She and Dad had this terrible argument. She packed a bag. I was angry because she was leaving.”
He stared at the paper.
“The last thing I said to her was, ‘Fine. Go.'”
He looked toward the window.
“I waited for her to call me.”
I looked at the unopened envelopes.
“And she thought you didn’t want her to.”
Mr. Harris nodded.
The next letters covered years.
Isabella wrote about getting married.
About missing home.
About wondering whether Mr. Harris had graduated.
Then there was one written after Sophie was born.
Mr. Harris unfolded it with shaking hands.
A small photograph slipped onto the floor.
Sophie picked it up.
It showed Isabella lying in a hospital bed.
A newborn Sophie was asleep against her chest.
Mr. Harris read.
Then he made a sound I’d never heard from another adult.
Not quite a sob.
More like something inside him had finally given way.
“What?” Sophie asked.
He handed the letter to me.
Near the bottom was more.
“If you ever meet her, her name is Sophie. She has your ridiculous dimple when she smiles.”
I looked at Sophie.
She had a dimple in her left cheek.
So did Mr. Harris.
Sophie touched hers.
“She knew you?”
Mr. Harris laughed through his tears.
