“Why didn’t you ever tell me?”
He rubbed his forehead. “Because I didn’t want to bring that pain into this life. Our life.
I thought I’d made peace with it. But a few weeks ago, I got a letter in the mail. No return address.
Just a piece of paper that said, ‘Go back to the garden. The truth still grows there.’”
Janet added, “We thought maybe someone found the box, or… I don’t know. We just wanted to check it was still here.”
I looked down at the letters again.
Dozens of them. Years of grief and love and memory, buried right under my rosebushes. A wave of guilt hit me.
“I’m sorry,” I said softly. “I—I didn’t know.”
Rhett looked up, eyes full of something I hadn’t seen in a while—raw vulnerability. “I wanted to protect you from it.
But maybe that was the wrong call.”
Janet nodded. “He never stopped loving you. That’s not what this is about.
But grief doesn’t always stay buried just because we cover it.”
We sat on the back porch after that, quiet for a long time. I read a few of the letters. They weren’t dramatic.
Just two parents writing to a child they never got to meet. Telling him about the seasons. About the dog they got once.
About how they hoped he would’ve liked music. And then, a small twist that hit me sideways. One of the newer letters wasn’t written by either of them.
It was written by his mother—Rhett’s mom—who passed away two years ago. “I found this one in her things,” Rhett said quietly. “I guess she never mailed it.
So I buried it here last month. I guess… that’s what triggered everything.”
And just like that, it all made sense. I thought that day would break something between us.
But weirdly, it became the day that opened something instead. A door that had been shut tight for too long. Over the next week, Rhett and I talked about Arlo—really talked.
Janet even came over once more, this time with coffee and old photos. I realized I wasn’t in competition with her past. I was part of Rhett’s future.
And part of healing is honoring what came before. We ended up building a little wooden bench over that spot in the garden. Just something quiet and respectful.
I even planted new roses nearby—blue ones. Rhett said Arlo was going to be named after the sky.
