She never answered.

I asked David to please speak to her.

He told me he had.

“She doesn’t want you involved in her life,” he said one night.

I sat on the edge of our bed.

“Did I do something?”

“No, honey.”

“Then why does she hate me?”

“She’s still grieving her mother. She thinks I chose you over her.”

That explanation hurt.

But it made enough sense that I accepted it.

So I stopped asking questions.

I did not stop sending gifts.

A scarf.

A journal.

Earrings.

Something small every birthday.

Every year, they came back.

And every year, I placed the unopened package on the top shelf of the closet.

Maybe next year.

That became my private lie.

Then came birthday number thirteen.

I bought Chloe a silver picture frame.

I wrapped it in blue paper because blue had been her favorite color when she was seventeen.

As I sat on the bedroom floor holding it, something inside me finally gave up.

I realized I didn’t even know whether she still liked blue.

I barely knew anything about the woman she had become.

She was thirty years old now.

A stranger.

I whispered to myself,

“She’s been telling you for twelve years that she doesn’t want this. You need to listen.”

So I slowly unwrapped the frame.

I put it in the closet with all the other gifts that had come back.

For the first time, I sent nothing.

I didn’t tell David.

I simply went downstairs and made dinner.

Three days passed.

Oddly enough, I felt lighter.

Then the doorbell rang.

A delivery driver stood outside.

“Are you Alice?”

“Yes.”

“I’ve got a heavy package for you.”

He unloaded a huge cardboard box.

It took both him and David to bring it inside.

Then I saw the sender’s name.

Chloe.

I stopped breathing for a second.

Why would Chloe send me anything?

There was a note taped to the top.

I opened it.

Then I read it aloud.

“Maybe Dad will finally tell you why I left. It was never about you, Alice. Look inside and you’ll understand.”

Beside me, David became completely still.

“David,” I said slowly. “What does she mean?”

“She’s angry.”

“At what?”

“You know how Chloe is.”

I stared at him.

“No. I don’t know how she is. That’s the whole problem.”

Then he said something that made my stomach twist.

“Don’t open the box.”

I looked at his face.

All the color had drained from it.

“I’m opening it.”

He said nothing.

“You can help me or leave.”

Eventually, he helped.

I lifted the top flap.

Inside were twelve wrapped presents.

Each one had my name written on it in Chloe’s handwriting.

Underneath them were cards.

Twelve birthday cards.

One for every birthday I had celebrated during the years we had supposedly hated each other.

Every card was addressed simply to:

Alice.

I opened the first one.

Chloe thanked me for the lasagna I used to make on Sundays.

She mentioned the hug I gave her at the wedding.

She wrote:

“I hope you’re okay.”

I opened another.

She had written it when she was twenty-two.

She apologized for being distant when she first went away to college.

Then she asked whether maybe the two of us could talk.

I had never received it.

None of them.

Every single card had been returned.

At the bottom of the box was a bundle of letters secured with a rubber band.

College addresses.

Denver.

Portland.

Different years.

Different homes.

All written to me.

All stamped:

RETURN TO SENDER.

Then I noticed something.

The handwriting on the return markings.

I knew it.

I had looked at it on grocery lists and birthday cards for twelve years.

It was David’s.

I held up one of the envelopes.

My hands had stopped shaking.

I was beyond shaking.

“You returned these.”

David lowered himself onto the couch.

“Alice…”

“You sent them back.”

He didn’t answer.

“This is my name. Our address. Chloe wrote to me, and you sent everything back.”

“Alice, listen—”

“Say it.”

He looked at the floor.

Finally, he whispered,

“I was scared.”

“Of what?”

“Of losing you.”

I stared at him.

“And losing her.”

“David.”

His voice cracked.

“I thought the two of you would become closer to each other than either of you were to me.”

The room went silent.

I couldn’t even process what he had just admitted.

“You told me she hated me.”

“I know.”

“You told me she said she couldn’t stand having me in this house.”

“I know.”

“You said you two had some huge argument.”

David looked away.

“There wasn’t really an argument like that.”

My stomach turned.

“What did you do?”

He covered his face for a moment.