“What?”

“To just not love at all.” I leaned forward on my knees and looked to the grass where I’d found the flightless bird. “To just not fly again.”

“Sometimes when damage is done to our souls, we stop loving to protect our hearts. Everyone has their own way, but that is not your way.”

I nodded and closed my eyes, leaning my head back on the chair. Then his words filtered through the morning air and into my open soul with a simple whisper of truth.

My eyes flashed open and I jumped to stand. “Don’t move. I have something for you.”

“Huh?”

I ran into the house and grabbed Mother’s journal. Returning to the patio, I tripped over a broken slate tile and almost landed in Uncle Cotton’s lap. I held a piece of paper, extending my hand to him.

“What is that?” he asked.

“A letter,” I said. “A letter I believe was meant for you.” I held Mother’s last love letter in my hand, offering it to Cotton as I imagined she once offered him the last piece of her heart.

“How did you know, Ellie?” His voice came from another decade, a time before I existed, a time when he could have read this letter and maybe, just maybe, neither one of us would be standing here because another world would exist.

“I didn’t know until right this minute. When you said that sometimes you choose to stop loving to protect your own heart, I knew. That’s what you did. That’s what Mother did, and only you could know why.”

He looked up. “I never stopped loving, Ellie. Not once.”

My hand was still out, the letter wavering in the breeze. “Take it,” I said.

He did.

“I want you to tell me about you and Mother.” I paused while a wind of emotions passed across his face. “Please,” I said.

He fiddled with an empty bud vase in the middle of the table and then met my gaze again. “I never want to hurt my brother. Ever. I want to keep this from him. He can’t find out.”

“Is this why you were never around? Why we never came to see you?”

“Partly, I’m sure. Our separate lives were another part. We just lived such different lives, Ellie. And your mother refused to see me; she avoided me at all costs. I think she hated me more than she could tolerate.”

“Are you kidding? You told her that you never really loved her at all.” I stopped, placing my elbows on the table and leaning forward to whisper, “You tell me first.”