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“How badly?” Will asks.

“Terrible. Really terrible. She thought she sounded like some country singer. She did not.”

Taylor grins.

“Did you tell her?”

“Every day.”

“What did she say?”

“That I was jealous.”

Arthur laughs.

“She sounds interesting.”

“She was.”

Was.

The word still hurts.

“She had bad days too.”

Nobody says anything.

I appreciate that.

They don't ask what kind of bad days.

I decide to tell them anyway.

“Addy had problems before I was born. Drugs. She stopped using them, but she never really stopped fighting what they did to her.”

Will's expression changes.

“She struggled with anxiety and depression.”

I nod.

“Some days she couldn't get out of bed. Other days she couldn't stop moving. She'd clean the entire house at two in the morning because she was convinced something terrible would happen if she went to sleep.”

“That's why she wrote the letters?” Taylor asks.

I look at him.

“How do you know about them?”

“Sean told us there were hundreds.”

“Oh.”

I wipe flour from my fingers.

“She started writing them when I was little.”

“For you?” Arthur asks.