Nobody at the table would look at me.
My oldest daughter, Claire, kept twisting her napkin between her hands while the younger girls stared down at their plates pretending to eat. I honestly thought maybe somebody was sick or in trouble financially.
Then Claire finally said Rebecca had been trying to leave me before she died.
The room felt completely silent after that.
Apparently a few months before the accident, Rebecca told the older girls she felt trapped raising eight kids so young and wanted to move back near her sister in Missouri for a while. Claire was only twelve then, but she remembered overhearing arguments after the younger girls went to bed.
At first I didn’t even believe it.
Rebecca and I struggled like everybody else did. We were exhausted all the time. But I never thought she regretted us.
Then Claire handed me an old notebook they found while cleaning out their oldest sister’s garage last month.
It was Rebecca’s handwriting.
Not hate. Not affairs. Not some secret second family.
Just pages and pages about being tired. Scared. Feeling like she disappeared into motherhood before she even turned thirty.
One line honestly broke me worse than the rest.
“I love my girls. I love Daniel. I just don’t remember who I was before everybody needed me.”