AN: This letter was written about 7.5 weeks (give or take) after Tony's death.

This will be a multi chapter letter!

As before ==this== denotes Pepper wrote it, then crossed it out.

I would have scared our little girl today, Tony.

Thank goodness for May and Peter because if it wasn't for them coming here to take her into town for ice cream and some playtime in the park, I know would have scared her in such a huge way, that I can hardly bear to think about it.. Their timely visit was a total, unexpected surprise, and when May told me why they had come, I wanted to reject the offer. I mean at the start of the day, I had been okay. I was actually feeling fine, and because I certainly did not need some time "just for myself".

And I certainly didn't want to let our little girl out of my sight.

But I must admit May Parker is a very persuasive woman, and she's not one to take NO for an answer ==no matter how many times or ways you may say it==. Besides I can't deny that, even as tired and overwrought as I am, what she said made sense. She told me she knew all too well what it was like being newly widowed and trying to keep it together for your kid. She said just because Peter was a teen when her husband died didn't mean it wasn't rough on the both of them. She said one of the hardest things she learned in the months that followed Ben's death was recognizing that she needed to take some time out to take care of herself, and in this case, taking care of herself meant she took the time to grieve in private.

She said that I needed to do the same thing because if I don't take the time to address my grief and my pain now, then it would build up inside me. She told me that although she didn't have a fancy degree in psychiatry, she still had enough experience to know if those kinds of feelings didn't find an outlet, eventually there would be an explosion.

So although I didn't like the idea of letting Morgan go somewhere without me ==yes i know that's ridiculous since soon she'll be turning five and she will have to start going to school whether I want her to or not==, as I listened to her I came to realize that May was right. I had to take the time to address my grief for you. I had to stop keeping myself busy with every other thing I could come up with as an excuse to avoid the pain.

It hurts, Tony, it hurts so much that you're not here now. I spent more than half of my life with you in it and I just don't know what I am supposed to do with myself now that you're gone.

So I've kept myself busy with everything in the world I could think of in order to avoid addressing the questions I don't want to answer.

Work.

Morgan.

Seeing to it that the company makes it through this difficult transition.

==I have even been making sure that your stupid alpaca doesn't starve.==

I had a massive meltdown. When I say meltdown, I mean the kind of meltdown where I screamed obscenities at ==you for dying and leaving me to do all of this alone we were supposed to have DECADES together Tony you promised that we WOULD== nobody. I threw things around, I broke things, and then when I finally stopped being angry, I wanted to cry for hours on end but didn't have that luxury because at some point I knew our daughter would be back.

Why, what could have possibly have happened to make me lose control so completely you ask?

It was such a little, simply, and I supposed most childish thing ==maybe ever==

The last of your shirts ==which I have been sleeping with every night that Morgan's slept in her own bed and because your pillow lost your scent a long time ago== stopped smelling like you today.

It's taken me five minutes to write out that sentence because I feel so, so very ashamed of myself for the way I've acted today!

I guess one reason I got so upset over such a ==little= thing that I knew had to happen eventually ==the very last one I had== was lost too soon. I knew it was coming. I was dreading its arrival but the fact it happened this soon makes it worse because ==what happened was completely my fault ==it was through my own careless fault. It was an accident, I know it was an accident but it still does make it any easier to bear.

You see after the three of them left, I decided to do a load of laundry. I want to say I wanted to do laundry because I haven't been keeping up with it along with everything else. But I think we both know the reason I decided to do it right then was because I didn't want to do what May had suggested. No, I wanted to do the exact opposite of her suggestion and I think we both know why. ==I didn't want to have to address my feelings, or my never-ending grief, or the fact I miss you more with every day that passes by without you being here.==

So I went to empty out ==our== my and Morgan's laundry hamper, then took the pile of dirty clothes to the washing machine. When I opened the machine to put in the new pile of dirty clothes, I discovered that there was already a washed load in there. I tried to remember when I had put them in to wash but I couldn't remember. Since I had no idea how long they'd been in there, I reached down to pull one of the items out. I had intended to give whatever it was a smell, to see if the clothes had been in there long enough to mildew. Mildew quickly became the last thing on my mind when I realized the item I pulled out was one of your shirts, and it was the very last one I had left of yours that still smelled like you.

It was unbelievable , ridiculous the way I reacted when I found it. It is both of those things doubled when you consider the fact that I am an adult woman who is at the age that I am, and yet I still threw a tantrum like I am actually the age of our daughter instead of grown up I supposedly am. It was a tantrum I know would have had our four and a half year old daughter strutting around like a very proud miniature copy of her Daddy, especially if she could have gotten away with that kind of massive meltdown without any consequences for her behavior afterwards like I did.

If she had been there to see her Mommy's meltdown, I know Morgan would have thought it was also unfair since I didn't make myself sit in time out like I would have made her do. But despite what our little girl would think of her mommy's tantrum, I didn't really get away without any consequences. I just had to deal with a different kind of consequences than what turned out to be my consequence for losing control.

At the moment the raging storm passed, I felt so very ashamed of myself, and frustrated. What good did it do me to lose control like that? It was all I could think about while I looked around the floor at the damage I had made around our living room.

The consequences of losing control of myself so completely for just a few minutes was over an hour's worth of work cleaning up afterwards. There was broken glass everywhere, and all over the floor. I didn't realize until I stepped on a few tiny pieces of glass, or that it got embedded into my foot until I saw some smears of blood on the kitchen floor. I guess ==it's what I get for making myself so numb and tired by losing control like that== I should have thought to put on some shoes before I started to clean up, but I obviously didn't . But don't worry, my foot bled a lot but the glass didn't actually go in too deeply. I was able to get it all out with the use of peroxide and some tweezers.

It doesn't hurt too much to walk on my foot, and that's a good thing I suppose since, on top of everything else, I don't want to have to explain to Morgan how Mommy hurt her foot. I know if she looks around, our little girl is sharp enough to pick on the fact some things are now different than they were before she left the house with Peter and May. I hope she won't notice but she is her father's daughter, and of course she will.

I still cleaned up as best I could. I made sure all of the glass, and anything else that's now sharp that can hurt her is now in the trash and has been removed from the house to the outside trash can. Morgan is little and won't be able to look out there by herself so that part of the evidence of what happened is safe from her little eyes.

My timing was good, actually it was very good because I had just finished cleaning everything up ==including the short trail of bloody footprints== five minutes before I heard car doors shutting, and footsteps on the porch. Of course, the door opened the next second because I hadn't locked it and I heard Morgan's sweet, my saving grace and my reason for living, little voice call out for me.

"Mommy?"