My daughter, 8, came home shaking. Her teacher had yelled, “Your dad must wish you were never born!” Furious, I went to see this teacher. She smiled: “Sir, I feel sorry for you!
Have you looked in your child’s bag?” And she showed me. My blood ran cold when I found a stack of letters, handwritten in a script I recognized instantly—it was the handwriting of my late wife, Martha. I stood there in the quiet classroom in Sussex, the smell of crayons and floor wax suddenly overwhelming me.
Martha had been gone for three years, a victim of a sudden illness that tore our world apart before our daughter, Rosie, was even five. I had spent every day since then trying to be the perfect father, the stable rock, and the provider who never let a single crack show. To see a teacher—someone I trusted—say something so cruel to a grieving child felt like a physical blow to my chest.
“What is this, Miss Halloway?” I asked, my voice trembling as I gripped the edges of the colorful plastic desk. “Why are you going through my daughter’s personal things, and how dare you say such a thing to her?” Miss Halloway didn’t flinch; she was a woman in her fifties who had seen thousands of children pass through these halls. She didn’t look angry anymore; she looked deeply, profoundly sad, which made my heart race even faster.
“I didn’t say that to her as an insult, Mr. Thorne,” she said, her voice dropping to a whisper. “I said it because of what she’s been doing with these.” She gestured to the stack of letters I was now holding.
I looked down and saw the first one. It was addressed to “The Man Who Lives in My House” and it was dated only two days ago. I opened the envelope, my fingers fumbling with the paper.
Inside wasn’t a message from my dead wife. It was a series of forged letters, written by Rosie, mimicking her mother’s handwriting with terrifying accuracy. She had spent months practicing the way Martha looped her ‘L’s and crossed her ‘T’s.
The letters were filled with horrifying, vitriolic things: “I left because of you,” “You are the reason your father is always sad,” and “He would be happier if you weren’t here.”
I felt like the floor was tilting beneath my feet. My sweet, quiet Rosie had been writing herself hate mail from her deceased mother. She had been carrying these around in her backpack like a secret penance, reading them during recess and lunch.
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