Chapter 11
Davina wrote to Mother.
I did not deliver the letter automatically.
I asked Mother on a clear morning.
“Davina sent something. Do you want it?”
Mother frowned.
“Who?”
I waited.
Then recognition.
“The girl with the blue bottle.”
“Yes.”
She looked at Nella.
“Do I want it?”
Nella smiled gently.
“That’s your decision.”
Good.
Mother took the letter.
Read slowly.
Davina apologized for withholding food.
For speaking about her memory as though confusion erased credibility.
For the pills.
That last part made Mother stop.
She looked at me.
“She says she did not want Aldric dead.”
“I know.”
Mother stared at the page.
Then:
“Neither did Aldric want those families dead.”
I became still.
Bellmoor.
Even now she could connect it.
“He was still wrong.”
“Yes.”
Mother tapped the letter.
“So is she.”
“Yes.”
Then something unexpected.
“People can be wrong without being monsters.”
I almost laughed.
My mother, whose memory sometimes forgot my name, had just given the cleanest summary any of us managed.
She did not respond to Davina.
Not then.
Weeks later, on another lucid morning, she asked for the letter again.
Then wrote three words beneath it.
FEED PEOPLE FIRST.
Nella laughed when she saw it.
So did I.
Mother sent that back.
Davina never replied.
Appropriate.
May you like
Not every apology needs a conversation.
Sometimes three words are enough.
