I’d curl up on his side beneath his blanket, leaving the television on until morning.
Our daughter, Aurora, finally said something.
“Mom, you can’t keep sleeping out here.”
“I’m comfortable, honey.”
I’d curl up on his side.
“You complained about that couch for half my childhood.”
“People change.”
Aurora was 29, with her father’s dry humor and my stubborn streak.
She sat beside me.
“Dad wouldn’t want you sleeping with the remote digging into your back.”
She sat beside me.
I almost smiled.
Then she squeezed my hand.
“You don’t have to keep everything exactly as he left it.”
That evening, I listed the couch online for $40.
I nearly deleted the listing three times.
I almost smiled.
***
Josh arrived the next afternoon with his friend Liam and his daughter, Emma.
Emma climbed onto the cushions immediately.
“Daddy, look! We both fit!”
Josh smiled.
Josh arrived the next afternoon.
“I’ve been furnishing our apartment since my divorce. We’ve been watching cartoons on the floor.”
He handed me $40.
I returned $20.
“Buy her something nice, sweetheart. She deserves a treat on her new couch.”
“Are you sure?”
He handed me $40.
“Take it before I change my mind.”
Liam helped carry the couch outside.
I almost called them back.
Instead, I watched Arthur’s favorite seat disappear.
I almost called them back.
That night, I slept in our bed for the first time in six months.
***
Now Josh stood in my kitchen, looking uncomfortable.
“Emma dropped a pencil between the cushions last night,” he explained. “I turned the couch over and noticed the fabric underneath had been sewn shut by hand.”
“Arthur repaired that thing constantly.”
I slept in our bed for the first time in six months.
“That’s what I figured. But one seam looked newer.”
He placed the package on my table.
“Did you know what he was hiding inside?”
I shook my head.
“I opened the wrapping,” Josh admitted. “I read the first few lines before I realized it was private. I’m sorry.”
I shook my head.
He pushed the $20 toward me.
“Emma loves the couch, but if you want it back, I’ll bring it over.”
I looked at Arthur’s handwriting.
“Keep the couch, Josh. She needs somewhere to watch her cartoons.”
He pushed the $20 toward me.
After he left, I found some scissors.
***
Inside the wrapping was a thick stack of handwritten pages, held together with rubber bands.
A letter rested on top.
The first thing I saw was a date.
A letter rested on top.
June 14.
Maisie’s birthday.
Our first daughter would have turned 33 that year. But she’d lived for only eight months.
Beneath the date, Arthur had written:
“I couldn’t tell you this while I was alive.”
I sat down.
Maisie’s birthday.
“Arthur, what have you done?”
The next page had a title.
The Life We Didn’t Get.
Below it was another heading.
Maisie’s Fifth Birthday.
***
The first chapter described a little girl refusing to wear matching socks.
“Arthur, what have you done?”
“Nobody can see them inside my shoes,” Maisie argued.
“They’ll know,” her mother replied.
“Then they shouldn’t be looking.”
I laughed.
Arthur had given her my stubbornness.
“They’ll know.”
In his story, Maisie wanted a chocolate birthday cake. Arthur bought one with raspberries, which she hated.
She refused to eat until he removed every raspberry.
Then I reached a sentence that stopped me.
Monica watched our daughter blow out five candles. For once, she didn’t have to wonder what this birthday might have looked like.
She refused to eat.
I lowered the pages.
Arthur and I had spent years trying to make peace with the birthdays Maisie never celebrated.
Yet he’d imagined them all.
At eight, she learned to ride a bicycle.
At 12, she wanted to become a veterinarian.
At 16, she brought home a boy Arthur disliked because he called him “buddy.”
I lowered the pages.
I laughed again.
Arthur couldn’t stand that word.
“Oh, Arthur.”
But the farther I read, the more unsettled I became.
He’d imagined an entire life for Maisie.
School dances. Arguments. Holidays. Her first apartment.
The more unsettled I became.
Even her wedding.
How long had he been writing this?
And why hadn’t he told me?
***
I carried the manuscript into our bedroom.
Arthur’s desk stood beside the window. I’d barely opened it since he died.
Even her wedding.
“All right, mister. Let’s see what else you’ve been keeping.”
The first drawer held Arthur’s old batteries.
In the second, I found three notebooks, one containing 12 years of writing notes.
Maisie learns to swim.
First terrible haircut.
Monica teaches her to drive.
“All right, mister.”
Near the back, Arthur had written:
Hid manuscript in couch. Need courage to show Monica.
Then I found a sentence he’d underlined.
Don’t make her perfect.
Arthur hadn’t imagined a daughter who never argued or made mistakes.
Don’t make her perfect.
He’d given Maisie a personality.
A life.
I picked up the manuscript and found the wedding chapter.
Maisie stood before a mirror while I fastened her dress.
“Mom, you’re making that face.”
“What face?”
A life.
“The one you make when you’re trying not to cry.”
Arthur had noticed that about me.
All those evenings on the couch, he’d been imagining Maisie growing up.
But what about Aurora? Our living daughter had grown up right in front of us.
Arthur had noticed.
I grabbed my keys.
I needed to understand why Arthur had written so much about one daughter while keeping the other outside these pages.
***
Aurora opened her apartment door.
“Mom? What’s wrong?”
I grabbed my keys.
“Your father wrote something I never knew about.”
She stepped aside.
“Come in. I’ll make coffee.”
“Please don’t make that expensive stuff you bought me last time.”
“It’s regular coffee, Mom.”
She stepped aside.
“It tasted like burnt toast.”
She laughed and went into the kitchen.
I placed Arthur’s manuscript on the table.
Aurora read the title.
“Dad wrote this?”
She laughed.
“He did.”
She turned several pages.
“About Maisie?”
“About what her life might have been.”
Aurora read quietly before looking up.
“About Maisie?”
“I wish he’d shown me.”
“Why?”
“Because I would’ve liked to know more about her.”
I reached for her hand.
“I wish he’d shown me.”
“Honey, Maisie was gone before you were born. We didn’t get to know enough about her either.”
“I wasn’t asking you to change that.”
“Then what are you asking?”
Aurora closed the manuscript.
“Why was it so hard to talk about her?”
“Honey, Maisie was gone before you were born.”
I frowned.
“We talked about Maisie.”
“Not really, Mom.”
“That’s not true.”
“Not really, Mom.”
“When I was six, I found her photograph in Dad’s drawer. Remember?”
I remembered.
Maisie wore a yellow onesie with ducks and held onto Arthur’s finger.
“You told me she was my sister,” Aurora continued. “Then you put the photograph away.”
“I didn’t want to upset you.”
I remembered.
“I was six, Mom. I just wanted to know whether she looked like me.”
“Your father and I did our best.”
“I know. But I’m trying to tell you what it felt like, and you keep telling me why you did it.”
I looked away, then stood.
“I was six, Mom.”
“I should go.”
“Mom, please don’t leave because we disagree.”
But I picked up my purse.
I wasn’t ready to hear anything else.
***
Halfway home, I pulled into a parking lot.
“I should go.”
I remembered Aurora at six, holding Maisie’s photograph.
“Would she have played with me?”
“Probably, sweetheart.”
I’d put the picture away, thinking I was protecting her. Now I wondered what she’d understood from my silence.
I called her.
“Probably, sweetheart.”
“Mom?”
“I shouldn’t have walked out. I’m sorry.”
She was quiet.
“I didn’t like hearing that we made you feel shut out,” I admitted.
“I wasn’t trying to hurt you.”
“Mom?”
“I’d still like to hear the rest.”
“Are you sure?”
“Come for dinner tomorrow. We can talk properly.”
After a pause, she agreed.
“Are you sure?”
I put down the phone and looked at Arthur’s manuscript on the passenger seat.
I wasn’t finished with it.
But I couldn’t keep reading his words while ignoring my daughter’s.
***
The following evening, Aurora arrived carrying dessert.
“I brought pie,” she said.
I wasn’t finished with it.
“I made chicken.”
“Good. I was worried you’d serve the manuscript.”
I laughed and took her coat.
Over dinner, I set down my fork.
“Tell me what you remember about Maisie.”
“I made chicken.”
Aurora looked surprised.
“Honestly?”
“Especially honestly.”
She thought for a moment.
“I remember Dad going quiet every June. And I remember you avoiding the photo albums.”
“Honestly?”
I nodded.
“I couldn’t look at them sometimes.”
“I figured that out when I got older.”
“What did you think when you were little?”
She moved her potatoes around her plate.
I nodded.
“Sometimes I thought you wished our family had turned out differently.”
I reached across the table.
“Aurora, we never wished you away.”
“I believe you, Mom. I’m just telling you what it felt like.”
“Then why didn’t you ask us?”
“Aurora, we never wished you away.”
“Because whenever I mentioned Maisie, you looked so sad. I even drew a picture of all four of us once, but I threw it away. I thought it might upset you.”
I’d stayed silent to protect Aurora. She’d done the same for me.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
Aurora squeezed my hand.
“I’m sorry.”
“I wish we’d spoken about her more.”
I looked toward the manuscript.
“There’s something I haven’t figured out about your father’s book.”
“What?”
“Why he spent so many years writing about the life Maisie never had.”
“I wish we’d spoken about her more.”
Aurora considered that.
“Maybe he wanted to know her too. And maybe that’s how he tried to heal from her.”
I hadn’t thought of it that way.
***
After dinner, I walked her to the door.
“Can I read the rest when you’re finished?” she asked.
Aurora considered that.
“Of course.”
“And Mom?”
“Yes?”
“I don’t need you to have every answer. I never did.”
I hugged her.
“Yes?”
“That’s fortunate, because I’m running short.”
***
That night, I returned to Arthur’s manuscript.
I read about Maisie leaving for college and calling home after ruining her laundry.
Then I turned another page.
I returned to Arthur’s manuscript.
The heading had changed.
Aurora’s First Bicycle.
I frowned.
This wasn’t part of Maisie’s imagined life.
I frowned.
I began reading.
Aurora was seven when Monica decided she was ready to ride without training wheels.
I remembered that afternoon.
Arthur wanted to wait.
I’d insisted she could manage.
Arthur wanted to wait.
Aurora fell twice before she rode across the driveway.
Arthur described me running beside her, shouting encouragement.
Then came the moment Aurora turned around.
“Did you see me, Daddy?”
I saw her, Arthur had written. And I saw Monica laughing as she ran after our girl.
Aurora fell twice.
I turned the page.
The Birthday Cake Disaster.
Aurora was ten.
She’d confused salt with sugar while making Arthur’s birthday cake.
He’d eaten two bites before admitting something was wrong.
Aurora was ten.
I laughed until my eyes watered.
The next heading was The Day Monica Sang Again.
Arthur wrote about Aurora making up silly words to a song while I washed dishes.
I’d joined in without realizing it.
He’d stood in the doorway listening.
I laughed.
I’d forgotten how much I missed hearing Monica sing, Arthur had written.
I stopped.
The first half of the manuscript imagined the life Maisie never had.
The second half recorded the life we’d actually lived.
Arthur hadn’t forgotten about Aurora.
I’d forgotten how much I missed hearing Monica sing.
He’d been writing about both daughters.
***
The final pages contained a letter.
“Monica,
I was afraid you’d read the beginning and think I wanted that life more than ours.
I didn’t.”
He’d been writing.
I lowered the page.
“Then why didn’t you tell me, Arthur?”
I looked toward his empty chair before reading on.
“I wanted Maisie to grow up. I wanted to hear her argue about homework and complain about my cooking.
But I never wished Aurora away.
When she was born, I loved her for who she was. Not because she could replace anyone.”
I lowered the page.
I remembered Arthur carrying Aurora around the house when she was a baby, making up songs because he’d forgotten every lullaby he knew.
“You certainly loved making a fool of yourself for her,” I whispered.
I turned the page.
I remembered Arthur.
“I wrote about Maisie because I wanted to imagine the things we’d missed.
I wrote about Aurora because I didn’t want to forget the wonderful things we had.
And I wrote about you because, even when we couldn’t talk about everything, I loved the life we made.”
Below that, Arthur had added:
“I wish I’d been brave enough to show you.”
“I wrote about Maisie.”
I touched the last sentence.
“You could’ve shown me, you stubborn man.”
I remembered walking out when Aurora tried telling me something painful.
This time, I picked up my phone and called her.
“Can you come over tomorrow?”
I remembered walking out.
“Is everything okay?”
“Yes. But there’s something in your father’s book I want you to read.”
“Did you find something else?”
“I found something about us.”
Aurora was quiet for a moment.
“Is everything okay?”
“Then I’ll come after lunch.”
***
Aurora came the following afternoon.
I handed her the final chapters.
She read about her bicycle, her ruined cake, and the afternoon Arthur heard me singing.
Then she reached his letter.
“I’ll come after lunch.”
When she finished, she wiped her cheeks.
“He remembered all of that?”
“Apparently, your father remembered more than either of us gave him credit for.”
She smiled.
“Do you think he wished Maisie was here instead of me?”
She wiped her cheeks.
I moved closer.
“No, sweetheart. He wished both his girls were here.”
Aurora leaned against my shoulder.
I opened the manuscript again.
“There’s one chapter I haven’t read yet.”
I moved closer.
She looked at the heading.
The Day You Came Home.
“Did Dad really remember the day I was born that clearly?”
“He forgot where he parked the car that morning,” I said.
Aurora laughed.
I turned the page.
She looked at the heading.
“But I think he remembered everything else.”
She pulled her chair closer, and we began reading together.
