THE LETTER I STILL HAVEN’T OPENED

There is a letter in my possession that I have never opened.

I’ve had it for years.

I know my mother’s handwriting is inside.

I know she wrote it when she was still completely herself before Alzheimer’s began taking pieces of her memory and rearranging the woman who had spent a lifetime remembering everybody else’s shit.

And I know exactly what she told me to do with it.

Don’t open it until I’m gone.

So I haven’t.

Not once.

Not when I was angry.

Not when I was curious.

Not when family members started remembering things differently.

Not even when people began acting like something I remember blowing our entire fucking household apart somehow never happened.

That envelope is still sealed.

Mama is still alive.

And as long as she is, that letter stays closed.

But when the day comes that somebody calls me and tells me my mother is gone, I’m opening it.

That envelope might be so old it disintegrates in my hands.

I don’t care.

I’m reading every fucking word.

Because whatever Mama wrote in there, she wrote it when her mind was clear.

And there’s a reason that matters.

Especially in my family.

By now, you know me Cami and you know Leon...

If you don’t, you’ve walked into the middle of some shit.

Leon was the man I grew up knowing as my mother’s boyfriend.

Then, at thirty-three years old, I found out he was actually my biological father.

That revelation came during the same family meeting where I learned I’d spent my entire life celebrating the wrong birthday.

Apparently my childhood came with amendments.

But this story happened before all of that.

Back when I was still in high school.

Back when Leon was simply Leon.

Mama’s boyfriend.

The man who lived with us.

At that time, it was just Mama, Leon, and me in the house.

And Leon worked with my sister.

Not in some office with cubicles, fluorescent lights, and an HR department.

Leon worked with his hands.

Repairs. Renovations. Jobs where you wore work clothes, used actual tools, and came home looking like you’d done something besides answer emails all day.

My sister had fallen on hard times financially.

Leon could use the help.

She needed money.

So he started taking her with him on jobs. She worked with him, and he could pay her out of what he made.

I don’t know the exact details of their working arrangement.

I was in high school.

I wasn’t inspecting anybody’s timecard.

I had teenage shit to worry about.

As far as I knew, my sister needed money and Leon was helping her earn some.

Then one day, everything exploded.

Actually, that’s not accurate.

First, Mama started boiling shit.

I came home from school one afternoon and immediately knew something was wrong.

Mama was in the kitchen.

Something was boiling on the stove.

And Mama had the kind of energy around her that told you today was not the day to ask unnecessary questions.

Unfortunately, I was a teenager.

So naturally, I asked a question.

“What’s that?”

Mama looked at me.

“Get out.”

I blinked.

“What?”

“Get out the house.”

Now, I had just gotten home.

I hadn’t done anything.

I hadn’t even had enough time to do anything.

My backpack was probably still attached to my damn body.

“Mama, what did I”

“GET OUT.”

Okay then.

Apparently whatever was boiling on that stove did not require a teenage assistant.

So I went outside and sat down.

A little while later, my brother Marcus came over and found me sitting outside my own damn house.

“What are you doing out here?”

“Mama told me to get out.”

He looked at me like I was leaving out part of the story.

Because surely Mama hadn’t just randomly thrown her innocent baby daughter out of the house.

Surely Cami had done some shit.

“I didn’t do anything.”

Marcus went inside.

I waited.

Maybe two minutes passed.

The door opened.

Marcus came right back out.

I looked at him.

“What happened?”

He sat down.

“She pointed a fork at me and told me to get out.”

I looked at him.

“See? I told you.”

And there we sat.

Two of Mama’s children.

Outside.

Evicted.

One of us didn’t even live there.

Whatever was happening inside that house had apparently established a strict no-children policy, regardless of age or residency.

Marcus stayed outside with me until my best friend Heather came to pick me up.

I went with Heather for a while.

Marcus went home.

Mama stayed inside with whatever the hell was boiling on that stove.

At the time, I didn’t completely understand what was happening.

I knew Mama was furious.

I knew it involved Leon.

I knew it involved my sister.

What I didn’t understand yet was the full accusation.

Later, I would.

The accusation was that Leon and my sister had crossed a line that never should have been crossed.

A sexual one.

And this is where my family’s memories apparently boarded different fucking buses.

Because this is how I remember it.

Years later, people involved would describe what happened differently.

That’s their memory.

I’m telling you mine.

And mine contains a fork.

When the shit truly hit the fan, it didn’t hit quietly.

There were arguments.

There was chaos.

There was Mama trying to leave.

I remember being with her in the garage.

I remember her trying to get us out.

And I remember Leon running into the garage.

The garage door had an electric opener.

We needed that door open.

Leon unplugged it.

I remember that.

Out of everything that happened, that stupid little detail has stayed with me.

The plug.

The garage door.

Mama trying to leave.

Leon stopping the door from opening.

Eventually, Mama and I left another way.

We took a cab to a hotel.

A cab.

This was before everybody had an Uber sitting inside their phone.

You needed to leave, somebody called a cab, and then you sat there pissed off waiting for a stranger in a Crown Victoria to come rescue you from your own family.

Mama and I went to a hotel.

That's what I remember.

Me.

Mama.

A cab.

A hotel.

And the unmistakable feeling that something had happened that could not simply be unhappened.

Eventually, Leon convinced Mama to come back.

Maybe they were going to work it out.

Maybe they were going to talk.

Maybe Mama was trying to decide what she wanted to do.

I don’t know what agreement those two adults reached.

What I do know is that Mama returned to the house.

Physically.

Her anger?

That motherfucker apparently came back separately.

Because Mama was still boiling.

Literally.

Before Madea told y’all about throwing hot grits, Loretta Bennett was already in the kitchen conducting independent research. Allegedly.

One day Leon came home from work.

And once again

Mama had something boiling on the stove.

Now, if you’re keeping score, this is the second appearance of boiling cookware in this family crisis.

At this point, somebody should have taken the damn pots.

Leon walked into the house.

Mama told him his clothes were in the dryer downstairs.

Our house had this little spiral steel staircase that led down to the basement.

Leon tried to kiss her.

Mama moved away.

“No. Go get your clothes out the dryer.”

Now...

I don’t know about y’all.

But if I come home and my significant other won’t let me kiss them, there’s something mysteriously boiling on the stove, and my belongings have already been gathered downstairs?

I am not going down those stairs.

My clothes live there now.

Congratulations to the dryer.

It has a new wardrobe.

Leon, however, went downstairs.

He got his clothes.

Then he started coming back up that little spiral staircase.

Mama picked up whatever had been boiling on the stove.

She walked toward the stairs.

And

Okay.

Hold on.

Everybody calm the fuck down.

Before somebody starts dialing the FBI, local police, Dateline, the fire department, and whoever else y’all call when a family story gets out of hand, I need to pause right here.

And I need you to hear this in my best Wendy Williams voice:

Allegedly.

Allegedly, Mama took that boiling concoction

because to this day, I couldn’t tell you what the hell was actually in that pot.

and threw it on Leon as he was coming up the stairs.

Allegedly.

I was a teenager.

I was not a forensic chemist.

I did not collect samples.

There is no CSI: Mama’s Kitchen.

I’m telling you how this story lives in my memory.

And according to my memory, after that?

Mama left.

She went to my oldest aunt’s house.

We’ll call her Aunt Ruth.

Aunt Ruth was the family baker.

And when I say baker, I don’t mean she made a cute little pound cake twice a year.

Aunt Ruth could cook.

She was the kind of woman whose house smelled like something good before you completely got through the door.

Then there was Aunt Diane, Mama’s other surviving sister.

Mama was the youngest of the siblings who were still alive.

So eventually, we had Mama.

Aunt Ruth.

Aunt Diane.

And me.

Three sisters and one teenage witness gathered in one house after what we are going to continue referring to as

an unfortunate kitchen incident.

Before I got there, though, Mama made a phone call.

Leon had another daughter from his marriage.

Which made her my older sister on my father’s side.

And yes, if you’re attempting to diagram my family tree at this point, stop.

Save yourself.

Mama called her.

“Go check on your daddy.”

Basically that was it.

Go check on your father.

And then Mama hung up.

Ma’am.

WHY DOES SHE NEED TO CHECK ON HIM?

You cannot call somebody’s daughter with a mysterious wellness check and disconnect like you’re dispatch.

But Mama did.

His daughter went to the house.

Leon eventually ended up at the hospital.

Mama called me.

“Where are you?”

“With Heather.”

“I need you to come to your aunt’s house.”

“Why?”

“It’s important.”

Well.

Considering the last time I’d seen this woman she’d banished me from the house while something was boiling behind her, important felt like a word worth respecting.

So I went.

And that's when I learned what had allegedly happened.

Now picture this.

I’m in high school.

I’m sitting in my aunt’s house.

Mama has apparently confessed to the kitchen incident.

Both my aunts are there.

Everybody is talking.

And I’m trying to understand how my life went from..

What are we having for dinner?

to..

Should somebody retain counsel?

Then Leon called from the hospital.

And initially?

Leon was talking shit.

Talking about having Mama arrested.

Charges.

Police.

Whatever came next.

Which, considering the circumstances he was describing, wasn't exactly an unexpected reaction.

And that’s when I discovered my sweet aunties had apparently been waiting their entire lives for the opportunity to become the Corleone family.

One of them yelled from the background:

“WE GOT BAIL MONEY!”

The other one jumped in.

“AND WE GOT DAMN GOOD LAWYERS!”

I looked around the room.

Excuse me?

Who are these women?

Where have y’all been hiding this energy at Thanksgiving?

One of my aunts started talking so reckless I was looking at her like:

Ma’am, aren’t you the one who makes the cakes?

How did we get from buttercream frosting to organized crime?

At some point, one of them said something along the lines of:

“We can kill him.”

I damn near broke my neck.

“WAIT. WHAT?”

And once again...

Allegedly....

Everything in Aunt Ruth’s house is now allegedly.

I don’t know who said what.

I don’t know who meant what.

I was a teenager sitting in the middle of what had suddenly become The Godmother: Family Reunion Edition.

These women were firing comments across the room like they had legal retainers, offshore accounts, and somebody named Vinny waiting outside in a Cadillac.

I had never seen anything like it.

Mama was the youngest sister.

Apparently the older sisters had decided..

We ride at dawn.

And poor teenage me was sitting there thinking:

I have school tomorrow.

Then came the part that, to this day, absolutely takes me out.

Leon was at the hospital.

The doctors needed to know what happened.

Now, there were several possible explanations.

He could tell them exactly what he believed happened.

He could tell them there had been a domestic dispute.

He could involve the police.

This man looked at the medical professionals and essentially said:

The water heater exploded.

Sir.

The water heater?

That was the story.

He had been working on our water heater.

The water heater exploded.

And apparently that became the explanation.

I don’t know what conversation happened inside Leon’s head between:

I’m having her arrested

and..

Actually, Doc, it was the water heater.

Maybe he remembered Aunt Ruth had bail money.

Maybe he heard Aunt Diane had damn good lawyers.

Maybe he sensed the family baker had entered her organized-crime era.

I don’t know.

What I know is that the story became..

The water heater exploded.

And that is one of the reasons why, years later, when people started acting like none of this happened, I felt like I was losing my fucking mind.

Because what exactly am I supposed to have invented?

Mama throwing me out?

The fork?

Marcus getting thrown out two minutes later?

Heather picking me up?

The boiling pot?

The spiral staircase?

The garage?

The unplugged opener?

The cab?

The hotel?

My older sister being told to go check on her father?

The hospital?

My aunties transforming into a criminal-defense consortium?

The motherfucking water heater?

That's a lot of production value for one false memory.

And we haven't even gotten to the letters.

Mama wrote three.

One to Leon.

One to my sister.

And one to me.

The letters to Leon and my sister?

Mama tore into their asses.

Whatever anyone would later say about what happened between them, Mama's reaction at the time was not subtle.

She believed something had happened.

Strongly.

Her anger had already torn through the house.

Now she put words behind it.

But my letter was different.

Mama gave it to me with instructions.

Keep it.

Don't open it.

Not until she's gone.

Imagine being handed a sealed envelope by your mother and essentially being told:

This is from me after I'm dead.

What the fuck are you supposed to do with that?

Apparently, if you're me, you keep it.

For years.

And years.

And years.

Through arguments.

Through family secrets.

Through learning that your birthday isn't actually your birthday.

Through discovering that the man you knew as your mother's boyfriend is your biological father.

Through people revising stories.

Through people denying conversations.

Through Mama developing Alzheimer's.

Through all of it.

The envelope stayed closed.

That's probably the part some people won't understand.

Why haven't I opened it?

Mama has Alzheimer's now.

She might not remember writing it.

She might not remember what she put inside.

She might not even remember telling me not to open it.

So technically, who's stopping me?

Nobody.

I could open it today.

Slide a finger underneath the flap.

Pull out whatever has been sitting inside all these years.

Mama would probably never know.

But I would.

She asked me not to.

And whatever else has happened in this family, I'm going to respect that.

The instructions weren't:

Don't open this unless you get really curious.

They weren't

Don't open it until we're fighting.

They weren't

Don't open it until I can't remember telling you not to.

Mama said not until she's gone.

My mother is still here.

So the letter stays closed.

Period.

What makes that harder is watching memory become negotiable.

Years passed.

People got older.

Relationships changed.

The explosion became history.

And history became:

That's not what happened.

Or..

I never said that.

Or..

You're remembering it wrong.

Maybe they genuinely remember it differently.

That's possible.

I've learned enough about my own family to know two people can live through the same moment and carry away completely different versions.

Hell, Mama and I already proved that.

She said I already knew Leon was my father because somebody told me when I was sixteen.

I said I didn't know because the adults I trusted convinced me not to believe the person who told me.

Same event.

Different truth.

But this one bothers me differently.

Because there are physical pieces attached to this memory.

A house.

A stove.

A fork.

A spiral staircase.

A garage.

A disconnected opener.

A cab.

A hotel.

A hospital.

And three letters.

You can tell me I misunderstood why Mama was angry.

Fine.

You can tell me I didn't know every detail.

Absolutely.

I was a teenager.

I probably didn't.

You can tell me the adults involved experienced that situation differently.

I'm sure they did.

But don't tell me I wasn't there.

Don't tell me Mama didn't put me out of that house.

Don't tell me Marcus didn't walk in there thinking I was exaggerating and come right back outside after Mama pointed a fork at his ass too.

Don't tell me about the garage.

Don't tell me about the cab.

Don't tell me about the hotel.

Don't tell me Leon didn't suffer 2nd degree burns and had to do physical therapy after the so-called "Water Heater with my mother's name written all over it" exploded...

And don't tell me those letters weren't written.

Because one of them is still with me.

Unopened.

There's something almost cruel about that now.

The one person who could explain exactly what she believed, exactly what she knew, and exactly what she was thinking when she wrote those letters is still alive.

But Alzheimer's changes the rules.

I can't sit Mama down today and conduct a deposition.

I wouldn't want to.

There are questions Alzheimer's doesn't owe me answers to.

So I don't ask her to prove my memories anymore.

I don't need her confused or frustrated because I'm trying to settle a case that's been sitting in my head since high school.

But that letter?

That letter was written before Alzheimer's.

Before memory became something Mama couldn't always control.

She sat down somewhere, picked up a pen, and decided there were words her daughter needed to have.

Just not yet.

I don't know whether that letter explains anything about Leon.

I don't know whether it mentions my sister.

I don't know whether it's an apology.

A confession.

Advice.

A goodbye.

Maybe none of the above.

For all I know, I'm going to wait all these years, open that motherfucker, and find three pages telling me to stop cussing so much.

That would actually be very Mama.

But whatever is inside belongs to the woman she was when she wrote it.

That's why I'm waiting.

And one day, I'll get the call I don't want.

Mama will be gone.

There will be arrangements.

Phone calls.

Family.

Grief.

All the practical bullshit death makes you do while your brain is trying to understand that somebody isn't coming back.

And somewhere in all of that, I'll remember the envelope.

I'll take it out.

I'll hold something my mother touched all those years ago.

Something she sealed herself.

Something I've carried without knowing what it says.

And finally, I'll open it.

Maybe the paper will be yellow.

Maybe the folds will be brittle.

Maybe that motherfucker will practically disintegrate in my hands.

But I will read every single word.

Slowly.

Because those words will have waited a long time for me.

And so have I.

Until then, everybody can remember whatever the hell they remember.

They can deny.

Clarify.

Reinterpret.

Forget.

Maybe somebody else's version really is different.

Maybe mine isn't perfect either.

But I know what I remember.

I remember Mama standing over that stove.

I remember her ordering me out.

I remember Marcus walking inside like he was about to investigate and returning two minutes later because he'd gotten threatened with the same damn fork.

I remember Heather coming to get me.

I remember Mama trying to leave.

I remember Leon running into the garage.

I remember that garage-door opener being unplugged.

I remember the cab.

I remember the hotel.

I remember the spiral staircase.

I remember the hospital.

I remember the aunties.

I remember the water heater.

And I remember the letters.

Especially the letter.

That one is still here.

Still sealed.

Still waiting.

And until the day Mama told me I could finally open it?

Motherfuckers, the envelope stays closed.

AUTHOR’S NOTE

This story is fiction, but once again, the truth is sitting awfully close to it.

Names and certain details have been changed, and some moments have been shaped for storytelling. But this story was inspired by real events, real family chaos, and memories that are still remembered very differently depending on who you ask.

And yes, the letter is real.

My mother wrote it years ago with instructions that I was not to open it until after she passed. She is still here, and despite my curiosity, and believe me, I am curious as hell I have never opened it.

Today, my mother lives with Alzheimer’s, which makes that unopened letter even more meaningful to me. Whatever she wrote, she wrote it years before the disease changed her relationship with memory. I don’t know what those pages say, and I refuse to guess.

One day, I’ll know.

Until then, everybody can have their version of what happened.

The envelope stays closed...