your father is a good man. he loves you and he deeply loved your mother. many times it was her name he whispered in our bed. i pretended not to notice. only when he learned that i carried his child did he tell me about his daughter. he spoke of you with such tenderness that my fears vanished. you see, until then i didn't know how your father would react to my pregnancy. at that moment i realized he would love our child, too, even though he didn't love the mother. at least not then. he does now, very much, and we have three sons. your brothers.

thomas is afraid that you blame him for jack's death, and that is the reason you haven't answered his letters. i think there is another reason. i think you have ignored his pleas because of me. in many ways i understand. my skin is darker than yours, and i don't speak your language. nor am i beautiful like your mother was. perhaps my greatest fault is that i love your father.

but, lorraine dancy, you love him, too. i know this. you would not have traveled to another country to see him if not for love. at the death of your mother, you sought out your father. you needed him then, but i wonder if you realize how much you need him now. when jack was in the hospital, it was your father you asked to see. your father who rushed to your side, who held you as you wept, who cried with you. you need your father, and he needs you.

you love thomas. i love thomas, and in return he loves us both.

we are your family and you are ours. please. i beg you not to shut him out of your life. for your sake and for his.

azucena dancy

thomas read the letter twice to make the translation as accurate as possible. when he finished, he took azucena's hand and kissed her palm.

"i thank god for you," he whispered.

she slipped her arm around his shoulders and pressed his face against her soft belly.

"you'll come home now?" she asked.

thomas nodded. many afternoons he lingered at the school, not wishing to darken the home with his bleak mood or trouble his family with his sense of failure and loss.

"good," she said.

together they walked past the tiny post office and mailed the letter. but after all these months of silence from raine, thomas didn't hold out much hope she'd answer.

he turned to azucena that night and made love to her for the first time in weeks. afterward he held her close, grateful for her presence in his life. mentally he released his daughter, set her free. he couldn't use her rejection as an excuse to punish himself any longer. he had a new family now, and raine was welcome to join him and azucena or make her own life without them. the choice was hers.

to his surprise, a letter arrived from raine a week before christmas.

eighteen

it was azucena's letter that persuaded lorraine to confront her feelings about her father. she suspected christmas had something to do with it, too. all around her, people were celebrating the festive season with their families. lorraine had no family. and the only man she'd ever truly loved was dead.

she hadn't stayed in mexico for the funeral and deeply regretted that now. but at the time it had been more than she could bear. perhaps she'd feel a greater sense of closure-as everyone called it these days-if she'd stayed in mexico city. she hadn't even wanted to see the body; that wasn't jack, that lifeless shell, bandaged and hooked up to monitors and ivs.

and she hadn't been able to tolerate the thought of being with her father, knowing how he'd misled her. she'd only wanted to leave mexico.

never had she felt more like an orphan. she missed her mother dreadfully, and the small traditions they'd observed over the years didn't feel right when she performed them by herself.

she did manage to dredge up the enthusiasm to buy a christmas tree. but it sat undecorated for nearly a week before she started to trim it.

halfway through the project, she realized her heart wasn't in it. she paused, sat down at her computer and without forethought, started writing to her father and azucena.

december 14

dear dad and azucena,

standing alone in front of the christmas tree convinced me to write. that and azucena's letter.

she's right, i do need you. i wish i didn't. i lived without you nearly all my life, so it shouldn't be difficult to go on pretending you really are dead, the way mom told me. but i find that impossible.

you made a new life for yourself, started another family. after being alone for more than six months now, i'm beginning to appreciate what it must have been like for you without mom and me. at one time, i believed that you'd betrayed your marriage vows to mother, but i don't feel that way anymore.

azucena, thank you for opening my eyes. thank you for having the courage to write me and defend my father. he is a good man.

dad. i don't blame you for jack's death. how could i? if anything i'm thankful, so very thankful, that you brought me to him that fateful evening. in fact, loving jack has helped me understand why mom did the things she did.

from the day i found your letter and realized you were alive, i've been agonizing over one question. what made mom lie to me? why did she tell me you were dead? especially since her love for you was so unmistakable. i saw it in her eyes any time she mentioned your name. your wedding photo was on her bedside table, so it was the last thing she saw at night and the first thing every morning.

now i think i understand a little better. mom was the kind of woman who only loves once. she never divorced you or remarried because she gave her heart completely and totally to you. why she lied to me, i can't say, but i have no doubt of her absolute devotion to you. i understand because it was that way with jack and me. now, here's the shocking part of our relationship. i disliked him on sight and he felt much the same about me. because i wore mom's wedding band, he assumed i was married, and i let him think it. many times since, i've regretted not telling him the truth. there just didn't seem an easy way to do it and when i tried he wouldn't listen. i thought there'd be plenty of opportunities to explain after i'd squared things with gary.

you see, dad, jack and i weren't lovers, and yet we shared an intimacy i could never hope to find with anyone else. he is the only man i've ever truly loved. mom and i are alike in that way. so, dad, i don't blame you for what happened with jack. like i said, i'm grateful to you for bringing him into my life.

again, azucena, thank you for your letter.

merry christmas and much love to you all.

raine

january 2

dear raine,

i can't tell you how happy azucena and i were to get your letter. it was the best christmas present i've ever received. our time together last spring was far too short, and there was much to tell you, much to explain.

perhaps i can answer some of your questions now and help you understand what happened between your mother and me. i loved ginny, still do, and know deep in my heart that she continued to love me. our love for each other was never in doubt. but as i said the night i saw you, she stayed in the united states because she wanted what was best for you. so did i. you were always our first consideration. your mother wanted a high quality of education and health care for you. nor did she want to take you away from your grandparents who adored you. i was the one foolish enough to ruin my life, and i didn't want you or your mother to pay the penalty for my sins.

as i also explained, from the midseventies until you were about nine, your mother visited me on several occasions while you stayed with the woman you called aunt elaine. ginny's visits were short and it was agony for her to leave. many times i pleaded with her to agree that i should return to the states and accept my due. no prison sentence could be worse than the hell of being away from the two of you. each time she persuaded me to remain in my adopted country. i wasn't strong enough to do what i knew was right. now it's too late. azucena and our three sons need me.

when you were five, your mother and i decided to tell you i was dead. it was a decision we made together. you were at the age when you started asking probing questions about your father. the circumstances of my leaving were too complex and difficult for a child to understand. nonetheless, i always worried that someone might make the connection between the two of you and me, a man considered a traitor and worse. i worried that if people did know you were my wife and daughter, they would scorn you-and i couldn't stand the thought of that. it seems i worried for nothing, for which i am profoundly thankful.

what i didn't realize at the time we told you about my "death" was that your mother would come to believe the lie herself. i can't explain it in any other way. i think it was easier for her to let me go if she could convince herself i really was dead. as the next few years passed, her visits stopped and she only rarely answered my letters. for a period of time i drifted from town to town, more a prisoner than if i'd been locked behind bars. only when i accepted a teaching position here in el mirador and met azucena did i have a chance to start a second life. don't blame me for this weakness, raine.

about your loving jack. i will always be grateful for his friendship and i miss him dearly. he was an honorable man and a hero. he gave his life for you and without knowing it, he saved me, too. often it was his visits that kept me sane at a time when the world seemed beyond my control. he was a true friend. it makes me proud that my only daughter would give her heart to such a man.

you will heal, raine. the terrible pain you suffer now will ease. this doesn't mean you'll forget jack, or love him less. with effort you can learn to love again. i know.

your loving father

for four months lorraine and her father exchanged letters. email was out of the question, since at this point neither thomas nor the school had a computer. every night lorraine eagerly checked her mail and sent off lengthy letters of her own. for the first time in her life, she came to know her father and to appreciate his wit and intelligence. he wrote often of his sons, antonio, hector and baby alberto. the two oldest boys sometimes enclosed pictures they'd created for their big sister. lorraine posted them on her refrigerator and smiled whenever they caught her eye.

thomas encouraged her to visit again, to give mexico another chance. someday she would, she promised. as the weeks and months passed, she found herself thinking about the possibility. then, on the anniversary of her mother's death, alberto became seriously ill. lorraine knew what she had to do-but she needed to talk it over with her mother first.

taking a large bouquet of spring flowers, lorraine visited the cemetery in early may. she arranged the tulips and daffodils about the gravesite, then stood next to virginia dancy's engraved marble marker.

"hi, mom," she whispered, staring down at the perfectly manicured lawn. this was her first visit since shortly before christmas. her throat felt thick, and tears gathered in her eyes.

"i was angry with you for a while," she said, her voice hoarse. "but i understand now why you did the things you did." she was silent as she thought about that for a moment.

"i'm not the same person i was a year ago." lorraine knew she was wiser now. more mature. more tolerant, braver, a better person. thanks to her love for jack, of course, but also her growing relationship with thomas and azucena. she'd changed in other ways, too. outer ways. for one thing, the style of her hair. she'd had it cut to a more practical length. she felt jack would have approved of that. bit by bit her casual wardrobe changed from tailored slacks and silk blouses to cotton shorts and t-shirts. already she'd reaped a small harvest from the garden she'd planted and that winter had taken up knitting. gary and marjorie's newborn daughter was the recipient of her first project, a beautiful-even if she did say so herself-yellow baby blanket.