But Laura, our only daughter, sat quietly, engrossed in her project. Every once in a while she would ask how to spell the name of someone in our f***ly, then painstakingly form the letters one by one. Next, she would add flowers with small green stems, complete with grass lining the bottom of the page. She finished off each with a sun in the upper right hand corner, surrounded by an inch or two of blue sky. Holding them at eye level, she let out a long sigh of satisfaction.
“What are you making, Honey？” I asked.
She glanced at her brothers before looking back at me,
“It’s a surprise,” she said, covering up her work with her hands.
Next, she taped the top two edges of each sheet of paper together, trying her best to create a cylinder. When she had finished, she disappeared up the stairs with her treasure.
It wasn’t until later that evening that I noticed a “mailbox” taped onto the doors to each of our bedrooms. There was one for Steve. There was one for Tom. She hadn’t forgotten Sam or baby Paul.
For the next few weeks, we received mail on a regular basis. There were little notes confessing her love for each of us. There were short letters full of ti