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Letters to Z - Vol I

Dear Zoe,

I don’t know how to write this.

I’ve written many things, including love letters to your mother that were never meant to be read aloud. But this? This is different. This is the first time I’m writing something not because I want to, but because I need to.

Right now, you’re sleeping in your mother’s arms, small and warm, wrapped in a hospital blanket that’s far too big for you. Your tiny fingers are curled into a fist, like you’re already preparing for a fight. Like you’re ready to take on the world. I wonder if you got that from me.

You don’t know me yet. Not really. But I know you. I knew you the moment I heard your heartbeat for the first time, when the doctor pressed that cold device against your mother’s belly, and the room filled with the strongest, fastest sound I had ever heard. I knew you when you kicked for the first time, when you made Olivia wince and had my ear over her belly, I could feel it, too. I knew you when you made her laugh, and when you made her cry, and when I whispered to you through her stomach, telling you stories Scotland you might one day see.

I knew you before you even took your first breath.

And yet, I feel like I will spend the rest of my life trying to really know you. To understand you. To protect you.

That’s the thing, piccola mia—the world is not always kind. I have seen its darkest corners, walked through places where the sun never really rises. I have done things that I do not regret, but I would never want you to know. And yet, despite everything I have been, despite all the things I thought I was, you have made me something else. Something I never thought I would be.

Sincerely yours,
Your father
xx