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Dear Molly,

The end is near. My time is nigh.

I have spent these last few weeks writing to you whenever I’ve felt well enough to do so, but it gets more difficult with each passing day. In the morning, you feed me my medicine with breakfast, and by the time you head to work, the pain abates enough for me to continue writing. But I know the truth: my time is running out. The pain overtakes me sooner every day, and I cannot keep my hand or my mind steady enough to write. Forgive me, Molly, if my penmanship isn’t polished to perfection, and forgive me, too, for drawing this tale to a close so soon. I want to go on. I wish I could, but alas, few people get to choose their ending.

In my previous entry, I told you about my stroke of good fortune—how after amassing a nest egg from a literal one, I was able to rent a modest apartment on my own and soon after gave birth to the most beautiful baby girl—your mother, Maggie. Oh, Molly, how I loved that child. Everything about her enchanted me—her coal-black eyes and her dark hair, her chiming giggle, and her chubby little toes. The Astors allowed me to bring her with me to work in exchange for free overtime. I carried her from room to room in a laundry basket as I scrubbed, cooked, and cleaned. I spoke to her all day long, my maid-in-training, my little apprentice.

Most often, when I looked at her, I saw John, but sometimes traces of Mama or Papa, too. I thought of them often, half expected my parents to waltz into my apartment and rescue me from what my mother would have called “a hovel.” Or maybe they’d ring the Astors’ front doorbell someday and whisk me back to a glorious new estate and a life of privilege that now felt so remote it was like a dream.

But that never happened. Instead, with each passing day, I realized with more and more certainty that I was on my own, but my solace was that Maggie grew and thrived. Her first steps were taken on the marble floors of the Astors’ parlor. And when she spoke her first word, it wasn’t “Mama” but “spoon.” I’d started my little collection in the curio cabinet—thrift shop finds and hand-me-downs. She loved to play with those old silver spoons, admiring her reflection in the bowls.

Before long, my infant was a toddler, and then a little girl off to school. Time, Molly. It passes too quickly, and one day, you find yourself with so little of it left. Occasionally, life is marked by some unexpected occurrence, as was the case when a mystery guest walked into my life out of the blue, arriving at my apartment door when Maggie was five years old. While my daughter played tea party on the living room floor, I looked through the peephole and almost fainted on the spot.

There he was, the love of my life, the father of my child—John Preston. I was breathless. I didn’t know what to think, what to feel. He was older—time had marked him as it had marked me—but he was the same. I opened the door and just stood there, staring at him.

“Flora,” he said, taking me in; then he noticed the little girl serving tea to her dolls on the floor.

“John,” I replied. “Please, come in.”

As Maggie played, we sat on the sofa and talked. Over five years had gone by and yet my heart raced at the sight of him. He told me how disappointed he had been to arrive at the old oak tree on the day I was supposed to meet him and how he found nothing there except what the fairies had left in the knothole. I apologized, explained that I couldn’t let him ruin his life, “not for me, not for anyone—not even for her,” I said, gesturing to our beautiful little girl babbling to herself on the floor.

I asked him if he’d graduated from university. He had not, he said, because he never went. Uncle Willy couldn’t find work, and so John had to move to the city with his father, taking on a job to support them both.

“So what do you do now?” I asked.

“I’m a bellhop at the Century Hotel downtown.”

I had to laugh. “The top two students in our prep class—a bellhop and a maid. Life isn’t fair.”

“No, it isn’t,” he replied.

“How’s Uncle Willy?” I asked.

He shook his head. “He died two years ago.”

The news hit me like a blow to the chest. “I’m so sorry,” I said. “He was a good man, like father like son.”

John stared at me. “I looked for you everywhere, Flora,” he said. “I asked about you. No one from back home knew where you’d gone. I thought you’d died.” His eyes filled with tears. “And then not long ago at the hotel, I ran into that snivelly-faced redhead who was in our prep class. Percival. Do you remember him?”

“Of course,” I said.

“He’s a politician now. Can you believe it? Couldn’t write a sentence when we knew him, and now he’s running for office.”

“The way of the world,” I replied.

“His parents got me your address.” He wrung his hands in his lap, and that’s when I noticed the ring, not the Claddagh, but a simple gold band on his ring finger.

“I’m…married,” he said. “Mary. She’s a good woman, Flora. She reminds me of my aunt. You remember her?”

“How could I forget?”

I looked over at our little girl playing on the floor. “Maggie,” I said. “Will you serve our guest some tea?”

John’s mouth fell open upon hearing the name. His daughter trotted over, offered him a plastic teacup, then curtsied and walked away.

“Thank you…Maggie,” he said, his voice cracking. He turned to me. “You have to let me help you. And her,” he said.

“We’re fine,” I said. “We make our way.”

“If ever there’s a problem, Flora, if you find yourself in need, I’m here. For you and for her.”

“Thank you,” I said, my voice constricted and meek.

“You should meet her, my Mary,” said John. “She knows everything—about us, I mean. And she understands, too. She’s a good woman with a big heart.”

“I would expect no less from a wife of your choosing,” I said.

John gave me his phone number and I gave him ours, but whenever he called, insisting on helping us, I declined. Months later, I received a call from a cheery woman with a voice like chimes tinkling in the wind. It was Mary Preston, inviting me to tea. I went because I didn’t know what else to do, and I’m glad I did. John was right—she was a bighearted woman with so much love to give, it spilled everywhere. She became my lifelong friend. The moment I met her, I knew I’d done the right thing by letting John go. I’d spared him the travails of a harder life, and Mary loved him as well as I ever could, made him so happy, and eventually gave him a baby girl named Charlotte.

Mary visited me often after that. Knowing how hard it was to make ends meet on a maid’s salary, she’d hide money in my house for me to find after she left, always refusing to take it back, saying with a wink it wasn’t she who’d left it but the fairies. Mary and John were quietly there for us always, whenever we needed. Once, I asked her why she’d accepted me in her life, given the history between me and her husband.

“Because we’re the same, you and me. There but for the grace of God go I. Besides, we have something important in common,” she said.

“And what’s that?”

“All we’ve ever wanted is for John to be happy.”

But when your mother was a teen, Molly, the problems began, and John and Mary were desperate to help. We tried to guide Maggie back to the fold, but our tactics didn’t work. And when you were born, you were a beacon of hope, lighting up our lives, but Maggie still struggled. Young as she was, she couldn’t cope. She disappeared with a fly-by-night, leaving me to raise you as my own. Know this, Molly: I love you with every fiber of my being, and I will love you long after I’m gone. Others love you, too, more than you realize.

As time passed, Molly, you grew and you learned and thrived in your own way. And when you were of age to seek employment, it was John to whom I turned. He was working as a doorman at a posh hotel called the Regency Grand. I asked if he’d talk to the manager about getting you an interview as a room maid, and he did. Your interview didn’t go well. Mr.Snow felt you lacked the social skills required to be in a public position, but John begged him to give you a chance, said he’d look out for you. Mr.Snow relented.

You proved all the naysayers wrong, Molly. I still remember your first day, how you came home so joyful and excited. I hadn’t seen you so happy since those few weeks at the Grimthorpe mansion when I pulled you out of school and you worked side by side with me, my maid-in-training, my little shadow.

You’ve excelled at the Regency Grand, and you’ve made me so proud. But then came my diagnosis, and when I told you, you went straight to the river, Molly—denial. I worry what will happen when I’m gone. How will you cope? Will you make it on your own?

A few weeks ago, while you were at work, John came to our apartment for a visit. I shared my concerns with him. “She’ll have no one to look out for her once I’m gone,” I said.

He was shocked, upset even, which for John is a rarity. He said something that relieved a burden weighing heavily on my shoulders.

“Flora, you couldn’t be more wrong. Forever and always, Molly will have me.”