Ava looked at me carefully.
“Dad, you know that handwriting, don’t you?”
I stared at the thick black letters.
I had seen that handwriting on permission slips, birthday cards, grocery lists.
“Carol.”
The reception behind us seemed suddenly unreal, all music and cake and people pretending not to listen.
Vanessa covered her face.
The reception behind us seemed suddenly unreal, all music and cake and people pretending not to listen.
I looked at my daughters.
“Where are the originals?”
Claire said, “We don’t know.”
We left through a side door: me, the girls, and Vanessa.
I was already reaching for my jacket.
“Then we’re finding out tonight.”
We left through a side door: me, the girls, and Vanessa. Their husbands stayed behind with the guests.
Forty minutes later, we stood outside Carol’s old house, where her son Tommy now lived.
He opened the door wearing slippers and confusion.
“Do you still have your mother’s papers?”
“Rick? Why are you here?”
“Do you still have your mother’s papers?”
Tommy blinked.
“Some boxes upstairs. Why?”
Ava answered before I could.
Tommy stared at Vanessa, then at me.
“We think Aunt Carol hid letters from our mother.”
Tommy stared at Vanessa, then at me.
“That’s insane.”
“Probably,” I said. “Show me the boxes anyway.”
He stepped aside.
At the bottom sat a rubber-banded stack of envelopes.
The attic smelled like dust and old cardboard.
We searched for almost an hour.
Then Ava called, “Dad.”
She was kneeling beside a plastic storage bin.
At the bottom sat a rubber-banded stack of envelopes.
I picked one up with shaking hands.
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