Thanks so much for your patience with me in posting updates to this story. As always, I hope you all enjoy the new chapter!

May 1, 1829
Feast Day of St. Joseph, patron saint of fathers

Papa taught me to how read while we were in the boarding house. He wrote down the alphabet for me, and he practiced it with me every day, helping me remember which letters made what sounds. It was slow and hard. There were so many letters, and I remember thinking that I would never learn them all, that I was just as stupid as Madame at the inn used to tell me I was.

But Papa was very patient, and eventually – I think we must've been at the boarding house for some time – I learned all the letters, and the letters became words. Papa bought me a children's Bible, one with pictures and a large typeset, to practice reading from. My favorite part was the story of Moses and the Exodus from Egypt. I used to beg Papa to read it to me every night before bed. I could never tell him why it was my favorite, but I want to write down the reason here. It's a bit difficult to explain.

I wrote before that I used to wake up crying from nightmares so often that Papa let me sleep in his bed with him. He always comforted me, but never asked what my nightmares were about. He probably guessed that they were about my life at the inn, and he's never asked me to talk about the past. But one night, when the memories felt too close, I told him. I curled up against him beneath the blankets and started to tell him that in my dream, he'd been dragged away somewhere, and I'd been sent back to that inn.

I say that I started to tell him because he didn't let me finish. He stopped me right away, interrupting, "That does sound frightening, Cosette, but it was just a dream. No one's ever going to take you away from Papa. Now close your eyes and try to go back to sleep, love."

It still bothers me that he stopped me from talking about it. I think Papa likes to imagine that I was born on that day when he found me in the woods. I think he likes to pretend that I had no other life before him. My life was miserable then, but it was still my life. Those years are still a part of who I am, and Papa acts like they never even happened.

"It was just a dream, sweetness," he always said when I woke up crying. "It was just a dream." It made me feel a little angry and very uncertain. I wanted to tell him that it wasn't just a dream, that it had really happened, but I never did. Instead, I actually began to doubt the reality of my miserable years at the inn. Papa pretended it never happened, so maybe it hadn't. Maybe it really was just a bad dream. But could I really have dreamed all that?

But then Papa bought me that Bible and read the story of Exodus to me, and I felt reassured. Exodus was my proof that those years before Papa had been real. The story began with a description of the Israelites as slaves in Egypt, how harsh and unhappy their lives were. From that very first sentence, it seemed to me that Papa was reading about my own life. And the more he read the story, the more connected I felt to it. In my mind, I was the children of Israel (because I'd had to work hard all the time too, just like the Hebrew slaves) and the inn where I used to live was my bondage in Egypt. The madame and monsieur were my hard-hearted pharaohs. Papa was my Moses, sent by God to save me. I still think that whenever I read Exodus today, particularly these verses:

From Exodus, Chapter 2:23-25 – The children of Israel cried out for help from the depths of their slavery, and their cry came up to God. God heard their cry, and God remembered His covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. God looked down upon the children of Israel and saw their suffering.

Whenever I read that, I think of God looking down upon me that night in the woods, and I remember how Papa found me and took the bucket of water from me – thank God for that, it was so heavy – and how he took my hand and led me out of the woods.

When I was younger, I never thought much about what happened to the Israelites after they left Egypt. To me, the story stopped after they were freed from slavery and God parted the sea for them to escape from the pharaohs and their chariots. They all sang a song praising God, and they all lived happily ever after. The end.

But now, I know of course that the Israelites spent forty years wandering in the desert after they left Egypt. They were free, but the story wasn't over yet. I suppose mine isn't, either, or Papa's. We've been wandering, too. I've been wondering. Perhaps we haven't reached the Promised Land yet.

Oh, I don't know what I mean by that.

Today is the Feast Day of St. Joseph. He was Jesus's father on earth, even though they weren't related by blood. I think I'll say a special prayer for Papa before I go to bed tonight.