Signs Left Behind
Chapter 15 - The letter
It was Sunday morning. A thunderclap rumbled in the distance as the rain poured relentlessly, turning the streets into rushing streams. Matthew received a call, the voice on the other end broken with agitation.
“Doctor, we need help! A family is trapped in their house near the river. The water is rising fast, and the mother is injured!”
Matthew didn’t hesitate. He quickly slipped on his jacket and a rain poncho. While Isabel was still in the shower, he ran outside into the pouring rain. The streets were already half-flooded, the air thick with humidity and tension.
In the rush, he didn’t notice that the letter he had carried with him for weeks slipped out of his pocket onto the floor.
Isabel opened the bathroom door and called his name. But there was no trace of Matthew. Wearing only a towel, she approached the window to look outside, searching for him through the rain.
Intending to grab her phone to call him, her gaze fell on that piece of paper lying on the floor.
She bent down to pick it up, and her eyes caught the recipient’s name. “For Matthew,” written in ink right on the back of the letter.
Isabel didn’t stop and opened the envelope as if struck by a strange anxiety. Despite the great progress they made, Matthew always remained cloaked in mystery and a past he was never proud of. A hint of jealousy crossed her thoughts as she pulled out the letter folded into four parts. As soon as she opened it, a photo appeared right before her eyes.
Isabel saw something deeply familiar to her. The same photo she had carried with her throughout her entire life was inside that envelope, addressed to a man who had nothing to do with her past.
Still confused, she moved her eyes to the heading of the paper attached to that photo.
“Dear Isabel,
When and if this letter ever reaches your hands, I will no longer be here. An illness drained everything I had left since I made the most painful decision of my life.
My love, my beautiful daughter. I know I have no right to call you that, but to me, you always were. And I could never replace you or move on because my heart was wherever you were.
I loved you above all else, and that’s why I left you—to allow you to live a better life than the one I had with two broken people. I didn’t know how to take care of myself first, and in those four years of life together, I risked every day not giving you what you deserved.
My depression and my reckless behavior were so destructive that I had no choice. Your father and I both believed it was the best thing to do. I left for a while, thinking I could heal in a few months. But months turned into years as I went in and out of psychiatric centers, between addictions and suicidal tendencies.
And when I finally emerged, you were already grown. Guilt devoured me, and I felt there was no point in knocking on your door when I wasn’t there for the key moments of your life. When you needed me most.
Forgive me, my love, if only now I decided to write you a letter that I don’t know will ever see the light in your eyes.
A year ago, I already thought about writing to you, but I didn’t want you to see me in this state. I didn’t want your pity because I don’t deserve it.
Your father sent me photos of you growing up. I know everything about you despite not being there. I rejoiced and cried for every step you took, watching you from afar in silence.
I ask your forgiveness for all the pain I caused you. I don’t know, and I’ll never know if it was better to deprive you of my toxic and broken presence, but today, I carry a great regret that I’ll take with me. I'm not able to tell you in person how much I love you and how much you were wanted. I deprived myself of the love of my life, and that was my penance, but I don’t want you to go on another day thinking I willingly abandoned you.
That choice broke me completely, and today, perhaps my body gave in.
I hope my trusted messenger reaches you. I like to think that your hearts will call each other and that he will be able to convey my love for you.
Be patient with him; he hasn’t yet realized the depth of his remarkable, innate ability to love unconditionally. But I am sure you will find the way to him.
I was and will always be your silent observer. And I will love you for eternity.
Your Mother,
Eleanor.”
Isabel collapsed to the floor, incredulous, with a flood of tears wetting her face. She couldn’t hold back the crying and all the conflicting emotions.
Anger toward Eleanor for abandoning her and toward Matthew for keeping that letter and that horrible secret. Her mind had so many questions she couldn’t answer as she sobbed and despaired.
To those questions that accompanied her throughout her life, now more were added. Why right now, when everything seemed to be going well, now that she find some peace? Now that she was gone. And if Matthew had the letter, why did he lie to her until now? What was his purpose?
On a rainy morning, her life went back nearly 30 years. Dazed and debilitated by the thoughts clouding her mind.
She couldn’t do anything, felt trapped in that room that became her refuge, her home for all those months spent healing past wounds.
She wanted to leave, but the rain was insatiable. The phone vibrated, and she lifted her head, shaken, thinking it was Matthew. On the screen was the last name she wanted to see right now. Ethan. She was puzzled and, without thinking, answered the phone right away.
“Isabel?” The line was choppy, and she could barely hear his voice.
“Ethan?”
“Sorry for calling you like this out of the blue. Your father… He was admitted urgently for a heart attack. We’re at Saint Mary’s Hospital. Can you hear me?”
Isabel couldn’t believe those words. She remained silent, hoping it was a bad dream.
“Isabel?”
“Yes… yes.” She stood up from the floor to try to regain clarity and react. “How is he?” Saturated with tears, she stared out the window, waiting for the answer to that question.
“He’s okay now; they got to him in time. He gave my number for emergencies, so you wouldn’t worry…”
Isabel let out a sigh of relief, though still in shock. “Can you tell him I’ll get there as soon as possible, please?”
No response. The call dropped due to the bad weather, and without thinking further, she desperately searched for a flight back to London.
She bought a ticket for the next morning and started organizing her return. She didn’t have much with her, but she’d need to inform the orphanage nuns, the guesthouse, and… Matthew.
“No, it’s not the time to think about him,” she reflected. She took the letter and slipped it into her small photo album while trying to distract herself with preparations. Confused and with tears, she fell to the floor again and brought her hands to her face, as if living a nightmare.
While the rain continued to pound on the roofs and the streets turned into muddy torrents, Matthew was still at the clinic, exhausted but focused. The emergency required all his energy: the mother of the trapped family was saved just in time, with a head injury that needed several stitches. The water level kept rising, but for now, the situation seemed under control.
Only after a few hours, as he leaned tiredly against the clinic wall, did he take his phone and write to Isabel.
“Hey, you okay? Sorry for leaving in a rush this morning… They called me from the clinic, and I didn’t have time to let you know. Please stay home for now.”
He waited and stared at the screen lit up in the dark room. No reply.
He wrote to her again, this time trying to mask the growing anxiety.
“Tell me you’re home. The streets are a raging river; better not go out. Thinking of you.”
Still silence.
Matthew felt an annoying knot tighten in his stomach. Maybe she was sleeping, maybe she didn’t hear the phone with the rain drowning out every sound.
He tried calling her, but the signal came and went. Water ran along the edges of the streets, making it hard even to walk. The city seemed submerged in a blanket of water and darkness.
Meanwhile, Isabel sat on the floor of her room, felt the phone vibrate again, and, gripped by the anxiety of yet another piece of bad news, took it in her hands and read the messages with a heavy heart. She could have replied. She could have told him she was fine, that she was safe. But she didn’t.
Because nothing was safe now.
Because the letter she found changed everything.
Matthew persisted but received no reply. He was forced back to work and called for other emergencies caused by the weather.
Hours passed, but there was no sign from Isabel. He grabbed his jacket to leave the clinic and check the situation, which seemed unchanged. He slipped his hand into his pocket, as he usually did, and there he realized the letter was gone. Panic seized him. He couldn’t have lost it on the street. It had to be somewhere. He searched the clinic and checked every corner. He ran his hands through his hair, incredulous at what had happened.
He took his phone again and found a message from Isabel.
“I found the letter. The one you should have given me. Please don’t look for me until I decide to reach out.”
Matthew let out a sigh of relief, grateful he hadn’t lost such an important proof of Eleanor’s love for her daughter. Though devastated that he couldn’t explain the truth to her in words, looking into her eyes, he understood her reaction. The same one he felt at other moments in his life.
“I’m sorry you found out like this. Believe me. But I understand you, and I’ll wait for you as long as you need.”
Isabel turned off her phone, drained of words and anger. A new thought flickered in her mind. She was tired of understanding others and accommodating their traumas, their insane and incomprehensible choices. She was tired of accepting excuses.
The night passed quickly for both of them, who stayed awake, staring at the ceiling. More than once, Matthew was tempted to write to her, but deep down, he knew he wouldn’t get the reply he hoped for. So he persisted.
The rain eased, granting a truce. As dawn broke through, Isabel stepped out of her room to reach the taxi waiting outside the guesthouse.
She turned toward the house before getting into the car with its engine running. She looked around with the same sadness she had the day she left London. Knowing we’re leaving something we love hurts and makes us fragile and powerless. We wondered why life put us in front of such difficult choices, of separation, of goodbyes.
She didn’t know if she’d ever return to her kids, to that blue ocean. But now it was time to go. To face her demons from the past. Too many questions and thoughts haunted her, and her father was perhaps the only person who could really tell her the truth.