Six Left Behind Daughters and One Returned White Box Fifteen Years Later

The words “Return to Sender, Addressee Unknown” were stamped over the addresses I had copied so carefully from the divorce papers.

Near the bottom of the stack lay my old leather-bound notebook with the cracked spine. I had placed it there the night the last letter came back.

I picked up the top envelope. It was postmarked from Chicago, dated three years after she left, returned to our small town unopened.

I looked down at the stack of yellow envelopes postmarked from Chicago.

Reverend Thomas adjusted his wire-rimmed glasses and looked over the seating chart I had laid across his heavy oak desk. The radiator in the corner of the church office hissed, releasing a thin cloud of steam that smelled of dry heat and old floor wax.

The minister did not look up for nearly a full minute, his thumb tracing the edge of a yellowed envelope he used as a bookmark.

“We can easily arrange the family rows to keep them separate, Robert,” he said, pointing a blunt finger at the penciled squares on the left aisle. “We will put Maya and her husband in the third row on the bride’s side, behind your older sister.”

I rubbed my left wrist where my wedding band used to sit, feeling the dry skin under my sleeve. “Maya wants a front-row seat next to Adele, Reverend. She told the event coordinator at the Oakwood Inn that it was her right as the mother of the bride.”

“She does not have a right to dictate the peace of this congregation,” Reverend Thomas said, his voice low and steady. “This is Adele’s day, not a theater production. I can step in myself before the rehearsal if she tries to push the issue.”

“She is bringing a man named Harry with her,” I said, my voice flat as I looked at the small wooden cross on his wall. “He has money, and he is used to getting what he wants.”

Reverend Thomas tapped his pen against the desk, three clean clicks. “The church is still my house until the vows are said, Robert. I will speak to them both the moment they arrive.”

I nodded, but the image of Harry in his expensive suit standing in our modest church hallway wouldn’t leave my mind. The budget was already stretched thin, with the sixty-two dollars for the flowers yesterday feeling like a major hurdle.