I worked a six-hour shift the next day, getting home from the bus at around seven o’clock. I’d made lousy tips because, for the life of me, I couldn’t muster a genuine smile. Good thing Lauren hadn’t been there. She would have pulled me into the bathroom and grilled me with questions about what happened. Not that I could tell her anything. It was against The Rules.
My keys jingled as I took them out of my pocket. As I reached for the lock, my shoe hit something on the welcome mat. I glanced downward, surprised to see a medium-sized cardboard box with a UPS label. Confused, I picked it up, unlocking the door and carrying it all inside. I took the box to the kitchen table and sat down, reading the label on top.
To my absolute shock, the box was addressed to me from Aunt Carmen. What the hell could she possibly have to send me? Notes about how much she hates me? The souls of little orphan children? I tore off the masking tape and pulled the lid apart, going completely still when I saw what lay inside, cramming nearly every corner of the box.
Letters.
Dozens of them.
And all of them were addressed to me.
On the very top, there was a bright blue sticky note with one word on it in my aunt’s handwriting.
Perdónome.
Forgive me.
My hands shook just the slightest bit as I set the note aside and dug into the piles and piles of letters with my name on them in an untidy script. I ripped the first one open and found it was a card for my 10th birthday. I sifted through all the envelopes, finding that each one came from a different address under the name Simon Patras, but they all were signed at the bottom of the cards with “A.B.” It could only be one person.
Andrew Bethsaida.
She had been keeping them from me all these years, never letting me know that for over a decade this man had been sending his love and support.
My eyes felt hot. My hatred for her seemed to be at war with my gratitude. This was truly the only humane thing I had ever seen Carmensita Durante do, even if it had been years too late. Maybe Michael had put the fear of God in her after all.
It wasn’t just letters, either. There were trinkets too: small stuffed animals with dusty fur, key chains with golden angels dangling from them, even a snow globe from Madrid. All at once, I understood. My mother had wanted him to take care of me in her absence, but since he couldn’t do that due to being hunted by the demons, he sent me presents. He tried to reach me, to let me know that someone out there cared. God bless him.
I sat down and went through them all, putting the envelopes in one neat pile and the cards in another with the trinkets and stuffed animals in the middle. Maybe it was a good thing Michael wasn’t around, because I couldn’t seem to stop crying, though I was smiling through my tears. Even in writing, I could feel how much he cared about me—someone he had never even met.
The letters for my sixth through tenth birthdays were all simple and colorful, but the ones after that began to get serious. He didn’t divulge his own whereabouts or the fact that he was a Seer. Most of them said that I need only know that he would look after me one day when I was ready.
“You may be asking yourself who I am or why I’ve been writing you, but just know that I want to make sure you are safe. That is what your mother would have wanted for you, and what I want for you as well. I know that right now things seem at their darkest, but there is an old saying: sometimes it’s darkest just before dawn. There is a dawn for you, and me, and for us all. So hang a night light by your bed and wait for the sunrise, angel.”
A.B.
A fresh wave of tears tumbled down my cheeks, but they weren’t sad tears so I didn’t mind. I wiped my eyes and took the letter to the fridge, clipping it on there with a magnet. I had fought in a war. I had nearly died three times in the past three months. I had been broken and beaten and bloodied. I had lost my mother, my lover, and the man who may have been my father figure if he had lived long enough. I had killed. I had suffered.
But for once in my life, I had love and no one could steal it from me.