Her first book remains on her father's shelves, the spine cracked and well-worn. She's had at least ten since then - some best sellers, some not - but it's the only one of hers with his name on it as well. A little larger in font, a little more distinguished; her training wheels into the literary world.

Ava slides it from its spot, the weight heavy in her hands. The memories barrel back to her, the look of pride and awe on his face when he had first read what she had the power to do, the way she had believed him when he said it was better than all he had done in his career thus far. She had pitched fits once the writing process became real, snapped at him more times than she should have, fallen in love with the late nights and lack of plans, with the words on the page – both his and hers, a combination that somehow fit. She fought with him more in that period of time than she ever had in her life, all the while cementing a bond that made book parties and cross country tours some of the best times in her life.

She sits down on the office couch – the leather faded into a lighter shade of black- turning the book over in her hands. The seventeen year old she once was smiles back at her, but it's her father beside her in the photo that she's drawn to. The laugh lines around his eyes and mouth, history in the shadows deep within the blue of his eyes. Her heart clenches and she misses him already, misses the comfort he gave her just by being him.

She opens the book to read the acknowledgements or the last page, anything really, when she sees it. The envelope is old, edges yellowed with age and her name is scrawled across the front in handwriting that she knows she'll never forget. She blinks like it's nothing more than an illusion but it's still there, the same penmanship that had signed thousands of books, the one she's looked for in stores since she was a child. She takes a breath and slides her finger underneath the flap, pages unfolding. The date on the top has faded, but she knows what it is the second she sees it, can't believe he's held onto this for almost twenty years.

To my beautiful Ava,

It's in times like these that I wish my words had the ability to take away the pain you're feeling, to save you from all hurt in the world. I wish I was able to give you the happy ending that my novels tend to have or shield you from the worst things in life simply because I'm your father. I wish a lot of things, but mostly I wish that at fifteen you weren't mourning the loss of a woman who was like a mother to you; a woman who loved you as much as she loved her own child.

Before we had you, your mom and I didn't go out with other couples. I teased her that she was a hermit who was set in her ways, but the truth is we worked long hours and when there wasn't a case to solve we were usually home, spending time with Gram or Alexis or each other. Then we had you and two years later, you met Addison. I can still remember the look on Mom's face when the day care called to tell us that you and another girl had been terrorizing all the little boys. It sounded about right. You were destined to break hearts even then but we rushed down there not knowing what to expect. We found you and this pint sized pixie sitting there, looking like perfect angels and Mom started to laugh. She said this was my fault in that way she does. You know the look. Amused, eye rolling, somehow serious and yet not at all.

And beside her, another woman was telling her husband the same thing. From that moment on Claire and Steven became our closest friends and Addie became yours.

It was Claire who came to visiting day at camp with Mom the summer I was stuck in Seattle. It was Claire who picked you up from school when you were sick and I was on tour and Mom was working. She took you dress shopping with Addie and taught you how to make brownies so you could surprise us for our anniversary one year. Your mother likes to joke that Claire's my second (okay, fourth) wife and your surrogate mother. The truth is she's not wrong. Claire is someone special to all of us and losing her is like losing a piece of ourselves.

Coming home earlier and seeing you curled up in your mother's arms, looking so much like the little girl you were not too long ago, made me wish that I could save you both in ways I've never quite been able to. I didn't know Mom when Grandma died, but I know what it did to her. She let it take over her life in ways I think she regrets even to this day. From the moment she told me the truth of her past, all I wanted was to rescue her. I pushed too hard thinking that was what she needed and pissed her off more than I'd like to admit. It took me years to understand that being there by her side was enough. Listening to her memories when she wanted to share, helping her in her quest to find peace. Mom taught me patience. She taught me that sometimes the best thing you can do for someone is love them and hope that in the end, it's enough. My only hope is that you don't let this change you in all the ways it changed her. That you open up to us or find a way to cope instead of hiding behind pain or being too afraid to admit you're scared. The situation's not quite the same, after all you still have both of us, but I also know loss is loss. I know that on the heels of Gram dying, this is more than any fifteen year old should have to handle.

You're at an age where everything is changing. You're growing up and realizing that life never goes the way you think it will. You lose people and you gain people. You have your heart broken and think it'll never heal only to realize that one day it has. It's still cracked, still missing pieces that once fit so perfectly, but it doesn't hurt as much to breathe. There's room to breathe when you never thought there would be again. You find things to hold onto. You fall in love with people and places and things. As Mom would say, you somehow discover that even on the worst days there's a possibility for joy. You have her courage and strength, AJ, and every day I am so thankful that you're a blend of us both, all the while being your own person with defiant opinions and an imagination I am often in awe of. You and your sister have not only taught me how to parent – both of you in your own specific ways – but you've taught me the meaning of inexplicable love.

No matter what, I want you to know how proud I am of you. You're a pain who drives us crazy sometimes, but then there's also the version of you who comes home and spends hours with us watching movies on the couch, the one who has a sense of humor that is so wry and sarcastic and witty that it makes us love you all the more. There's the girl who befriended someone who wasn't popular because you liked her and didn't care what anyone else thought. You're confident without being vain. Don't ever lose that. Shelter it. Never forget who you are but don't always compete to be better. It's good to win, but it's humble to lose every once in a while as well.

You'll make mistakes and we'll love you regardless. Forgive yourself for those. We all make them and what seems like a mistake at the time could end up being something that changes the course of your life for the better. Let yourself be an idiot. The most fun I've ever had was when I was playing laser tag with Alexis or going to water parks with you or showing off to impress Mom. Life throws enough at us that being a child every once in a while even as an adult is worth it. Find something you're passionate about. It should be your career but it doesn't have to be. It can be anything as long as you throw yourself into something with reckless abandon. Mistakes can be undone, but not trying can't. Try everything at least once. Scratch that. Try everything that's legal at least once. Take chances. Be good to those around you but stand up for yourself if you need to.

Live your life in the way only you can so you never have regrets.

Know that if you ever need us, we're here.

And always remember how much Mom and I love you.

-Dad

The air is caught in her throat when she finishes, tears blurring her vision. She leans her head back against the couch and closes her eyes, can almost hear her father's voice in the room, reading to her in that voice of his; the one that had read to her on nights when she couldn't sleep, who told her a million and one stories of his life and her mother's life and their life together. He had left her alone back when it came to Claire's death, had pushed her to spend time with her mother – the one person who understood more than anyone what it was like to lose someone so young – but she had craved his wisdom, needed the comfort he so often offered her. Instead, he had written with her and it had become enough, more than really.

But this – this was everything she's yearned to hear, especially today.

"Hey."

She startles, opening her eyes. Her mother walks into the room, two glasses of wine in her hand. The heels and black dress had been discarded the moment they returned home and she's back in yoga pants, hair pulled up, looking younger than her age and yet somehow older, wiser.

"Hey," Ava says, clearing her throat, and then she's moving closer, resting her head on the shoulder that had let her cry over boys and friends and at times just life. The wine has been placed on the end table, forgotten for the moment, Mom's fingers sliding through her hair. It doesn't matter how old she gets, she still seeks comfort in the woman beside her. "You doing okay, Mamasita?"

Mom smiles at the nickname – one Ava had given her nearly fifteen years ago – and kisses her forehead. "Fine," she murmurs. "Where's Connor?"

"I told him to go out for a drink with Scott. Alexis took the kids home and I just needed..." She pauses, before holding out the letter. "Did you know Dad wrote this?"

There's a look of recognition on her face when she takes it, this gaze that filters through her at the sight of Richard Castle's words. Like she's discovered her lifeline all over again.

"He showed it to me after he did it. I told him not to give it to you."

Ava lifts her head and sits back on the couch, crossing her feet underneath her. She reaches for the wine glass and takes a sip, lets it coat her lips and tongue. "Why?"

"You and I both know you wouldn't have been receptive to a letter like that when you were fifteen." Her mother smiles again, her hand – part calloused, part smooth - against Ava's cheek. "You were a teenager, Ave. You went out and got drunk-"

The laugh tumbles from her lips and she covers her mouth with her hand, attempting to stifle her amusement. Mom glares at her, but there's no trace of anger, instead that look her father had written about. Amused, eye rolling, somehow serious and yet not at all.

"I forgot about that night. I remember rushing through the elevator doors and trying to make it to the bathroom and all I could think about was that I had stolen your new boots earlier that day and if I puked on them you were going to murder me and most likely get away with it."

"You were also wearing my jeans that were far too tight on you."

"We wear the same size, Mom. If they were too tight on me, they were too tight on you."

"You were barely sixteen at the time, Ave. Your dad saw you in those and almost had a heart attack. You were without a doubt a handful."

She smiles slyly, shrugging a shoulder as she brings the wine glass to her lips. "Keeping you both on your toes. I assume I'm the reason you never had another kid? Couldn't handle more than one of me?" Something crosses Mom's face, sadness or longing and her grip tightens around the base of the glass. It's not regret that's there, it's – loss. "Mom?"

"You weren't the reason we didn't have another child."

"I didn't actually think I was. There is a reason though."

"Ava-"

"Mom," she cuts off, placing a hand on her mother's knee. "This is me. Come on. What don't I know?"

The crimson of the wine touches Mom's lips, a pause before the storm. "We went back and forth on having another child after you were born. Dad wanted one. You girls were the loves of his life; he would have done anything for you and Alexis. I was – I was torn. There were so many moments of your childhood that I missed because I was working but I did everything I could to get home to you before bed. You were amazing, Ave. You were happy and playful and you made the worst days brighter. I had such little time with you to begin with and I didn't want to have to share you. But the more I was with you the more I wanted another kid. I wanted to see you be a big sister to someone. I wanted someone with your father's eyes. I loved you so much that I felt I was ready to love someone else just as much. When you were two, I got pregnant. I had a miscarriage five weeks later."

Her heart stops for the smallest of moments and she squeezes Mom's kneecap, anchors herself to her. "You didn't try again?"

"It caused a lot of tension between Dad and me for reasons that seem so unimportant now. We fought constantly." She rubs her finger over the rim, a slight whistle humming throughout the room. "There were times that I wasn't sure our marriage would last."

"So what changed?" Ava asks quietly.

"We met Claire and Steven. All that stuff Dad put in your letter about forgiving yourself for mistakes? About not having regrets? That was Claire's advice. She was our savior during that period of time. She made sense of things that neither Dad nor I could. We were both too stubborn, too set in our ways and Claire gave us the outside perspective we needed. It took a long time but we figured it out. In the end it made our relationship stronger than it was before. Plus, we did get another child. We had Addie."

"My twin terror."

"Your dad's favorite nickname for you two."

She thinks of the letter again, of words that have different meaning now that she knows pieces of her parents' lives that she never had before. Even all these years later, she can somehow picture Claire giving that advice, fixing things that were wounded. Skinned knees and fights between her and Addison, apparently marriages as well.

She holds up the pieces of paper, feels the crinkled pages between her fingers. "You really believe I wouldn't have accepted this then?"

"You're my daughter," Mom answers simply. "You needed time. It killed him that he couldn't help you but I knew. I knew what you needed in ways I'm not sure he could, even after he lost Gram. You had to process and work through it before you'd let anyone else in. Do you remember what you asked me the morning we found out?"

Those days are still a blur to her; some memories as sharp as a knife, some so hazy that they still feel like nothing but a dream.

"No. What?"

"You asked me what it was like to lose my mom at nineteen. You were talking about it. Maybe not in the way Dad wanted – he was all about trying to get us to tell him everything – but it was enough for me. I knew then that you would be okay. Two months after that you wrote your first chapter."

It wasn't what she expected that night; the touch of the keys beneath her fingertips, the way the words poured onto the screen and her brain shut off until it was nothing but emotion and fire and loss so deep within her soul. She had felt Claire in every paragraph, had written until the sun rose and her alarm had blared. It was her father who walked into her room the next morning instead of her mother, the extra wakeup call she so constantly needed.

And without saying a thing he had turned off the offensive beeping, kissed the top of her head, and called in sick for her as if he knew it was her healing.

"I want you to know, Ave, that writing with you was the highlight of your father's career. He didn't care about how many books he had on the bestseller list or about the recognition. Dad was - There were parts of him that he didn't let people see often. For as confident as he appeared, for as ridiculous and egotistical as he sometimes was, he worried what people thought about him. There were times he thought he was a fraud and he was always trying to prove himself. The first night he showed me your pages, he was so proud. You made him believe he had done something right."

Ava bites down on her lip, the squeeze of her heart making her chest ache. There's so much information she's processing today, so much loss and love ciphering through her veins. She thinks of the man her father was; humor laced in so much of what he did, serious for a time but knowing how to break the ice when it mattered. She lifts an eyebrow, the grip around the glass loosening. "I'm pretty sure your first declaration of love to Dad proved he had done something right. You gave him exactly what he wanted."

Mom narrows her eyes. "What? Me?"

"You gave him drama. Soaked hair, cheesy movie lines, a storm raging outside. Quite the cliché when you want to be, Mamasita."

"What other exaggerated tales did he tell you while you were on tour together? No wait, let me guess. He couldn't help but mention the time that he heroically rescued me from the death grip of a tiger while we were handcuffed, how it almost took his life but it was worth it because he saved me."

"He did it for love."

"He lied," Mom responds on a laugh. "He threw food at the tiger and then was convinced we were going to get eaten. Every story Dad has ever told you is probably only partially true."

Ava glances around the room, at a life so carefully built. The books and pictures, the knickknacks bought on tours. "I knew. We would be out for breakfast in Dallas or having a drink in London and he got so excited when he talked about his life with you. Of course I knew you weren't in a tiger's death grip or abducted by aliens. I knew Dad's ex wasn't a CIA operative who tried to kill you-"

"That one was true."

"Seriously?"

"What can I say? Your dad and I definitely had our adventures."

The pang of loss hits her so fiercely in the gut, unexpected in this moment of laughter. The leather is hot beneath her when she shifts and Mom grabs her hand, pulling her closer. Her chest pounds, threatens to crack and spill, leave its mark on the room. "It doesn't matter what age you are when it happens, does it? It never gets easier."

"It won't always hurt to breathe," and it's her father's line, maybe Claire's as well. "When you were younger, you used to tell me what you thought heaven was like. We'd go visit Grandma's grave and you knew all the right things to say to make me feel better. Even if it wasn't something I necessarily believed in, you gave me hope." She presses her lips to the side of Ava's head, holds her close against her. Her voice is nothing but a whisper now; soothing and imaginative and a life saver. "There's a party for Dad the moment he gets up there. Book party, birthday party, something where he's the center of attention. He's young, maybe around the time I first met him-"

"He wasn't that young," Ava murmurs.

"He was young enough." Without looking Ava knows there's a smile there, a million flashes that are going through Mom's mind. "He walks around and even there, there are a million stories in his head, a million things that he wants to jot down and write. And then he spots Claire and Gram. Sitting and talking over wine, laughing, and Claire turns to him and says Come on, Number One. You gonna stand there all day or are you gonna join us for a drink?"

And just like that, Ava settles.

She breathes.

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Thanks for reading.