Done Adulting Vol. 2 Ch. 14

Dear Mr. and Mrs. Dimakos,

This is a letter I never thought I’d write. I’ll apologize first as I know this letter will hurt. I hope, though, you’ll find some comfort in it too.

My name is Stacy Henderson. I am your daughter’s guardian in Itali. When she was rescued eight years ago, we each had a choice to make, and we chose each other.

I won’t tell you about the person your daughter is because you know who she is. I will only tell you that she is healthy, and she is cared for. She is loved, and she is happy.

I’ve never fully understood her decision to stay, her decision not to contact you. It wouldn’t be right of me to try to explain it to you, but please know it was her decision.

That’s why I’ve not yet told her you know she’s alive and here. She’s the most resilient person I know, but I fear how she will receive the news. Her world has been turned upside down twice already. I don’t want to do anything to cause her trauma or to upend her happiness.

I’ve talked to a psychologist many times now, and we’re working out how best to deliver the news. I still don’t know if I should. By sending this letter, for the first time in our eight years together, I’m making a decision affecting her without her consent. I don’t do so lightly. I know how this sounds, but I’m doing it for her.

I’m asking you for time. I know how horrible that is, that you’ve waited sixteen years. I’m sorry. I’m sorry for all of it. But I’m asking you for time.

If you intend to contact her or come here, please write me to say so, and I’ll explain all this to her, and then I hope we can work together to help her through it.

The point is not my happiness – I’d give it up, all of it – for her.

Sincerely,

Stacy Henderson

Stacy thought hard on the letter. She had never lied to Ella, never done anything that impacted her life without discussing it with her first. That’s what the letter was though. A lie of omission with the potential to devastate Ella. Stacy weighed that carefully.

To tell Ella and then ask her permission to send it would cause trauma when maybe that didn’t need to happen, not if her parents didn’t intend to contact her.

And if they did, the letter might help Stacy get control of the process, buying time to help Ella through it and forging a connection with her parents that could stave off legal action.

In either case, it would be better for Ella than if her parents were to suddenly appear, which Stacy desperately wanted to prevent.

That’s how Stacy justified sending the letter without telling Ella. The lawyer played no small part in convincing her of the logic. So she wrote the letter, and re-wrote it, showed it to the psychologist and the lawyer, who insisted his address be listed as the return.

She sent the letter, and then she hoped for the outcome she knew was least likely, and then she waited.