Chương 11
Marlene appeared at the end of the hall wearing the same dress she had worn to the wedding, though she had removed her earrings and pinned her hair up badly.
“You came.”
“You sound surprised,” Damian said.
“I am.”
She looked at me.
“Do you want coffee?”
“No.”
“Tea?”
“No.”
“Whiskey?”
I considered it.
“Later.”
“That’s probably wise.”
She led us toward the back of the house.
The library was smaller than I expected.
Bookshelves covered three walls.
A television occupied the fourth.
My mother’s desk sat beneath the window.
I recognized it immediately.
Dark cherrywood.
Brass handles.
A narrow fold-down writing surface.
One leg had a pale scratch near the bottom from when Damian and I tried to move it ourselves as children and dropped it.
I walked toward it.
My chest tightened.
There were objects in life that remained loyal to time when people did not.
Damian stood beside me.
His hand went into his pocket.
The brass key looked smaller now.
Marlene stayed near the doorway.
“You don’t have to do this tonight,” she said.
Damian looked at her.
“Yes, I do.”
He inserted the key.
It did not turn.
He tried again.
“Wrong key?”
“No.”
He jiggled it.
Nothing.
I crouched.
“Let me see.”
He moved aside.
The lock was old.
There were scratches around the keyway.
Recent ones.
I touched the wood.
“What?”
Damian asked.
“Someone’s been at this.”
Marlene came closer.
“What do you mean?”
“Tool marks.”
Damian stared.
“That desk hasn’t been touched.”
“You sure?”
“Yes.”
“Marlene?”
“I dust around it.”
“Around?”
“Your mother told us not to open it.”
I looked more closely.
The brass plate had been bent slightly at one corner.
Someone had tried to pry it.
Not successfully.
“Who has access to this room?”
“Family.”
“Housekeeper.”
Marlene folded her arms.
“Contractors, occasionally.”
“When were these marks made?”
“I can’t tell.”
Damian looked toward the door.
“Dad has been here.”
“When?”
“Three weeks ago.”
Marlene’s face changed.
“You didn’t tell me that.”
“You were in Boston.”
“Why was he here?”
“He wanted some tax documents.”
“From the library?”
“No.”
Damian stared at the lock.
“He went to my office.”
I stood.
“Was he alone?”
“For maybe ten minutes.”
Marlene whispered, “Damian.”
He put the key in again.
This time he pushed upward slightly while turning.
The mechanism clicked.
All three of us froze.
Damian lowered the writing surface.
The inside smelled like old wood and paper.
There were envelopes.
Dozens of them.
Some tied with string.
Some loose.
A thick manila folder sat beneath them.
My name was written across it in my mother’s hand.
Damian reached for it.
“Wait.”
He stopped.
“What?”
I pointed.
A pale rectangular space showed in the dust beside the folder.
Something had been removed.
Recently.
Marlene leaned closer.
“How can you tell?”
“Dust line.”
Damian swallowed.
“What was there?”
I looked at the empty space.
“Something about the size of a notebook.”
He reached into the desk and lifted the manila folder.
Underneath it lay a small white envelope.
Not old.
Not yellowed.
White.
Clean.
Sealed.
My name was typed on the front.
Damian looked at me.
“That isn’t Mom’s handwriting.”
“No.”
He handed it to me.
The paper was heavier than ordinary stationery.
There was no return address.
I opened it.
Inside was a single sheet.
Three sentences.
No signature.
I read them twice.
Marlene spoke first.
“What does it say?”
I handed the page to Damian.
His face drained of color as he read.
“What?”
Marlene demanded.
He passed it to her.
She read aloud.
“Your father did not prevent you from coming home because you never tried.”
She stopped.
Her eyes lifted to mine.
Then she forced herself to continue.
“He prevented you from learning that your mother came to you.”
The last sentence made Damian grip the desk.
“Ask him what happened in San Diego on October seventeenth, fourteen years ago.”
I stared at the page.
San Diego.
Fourteen years earlier, on October seventeenth, I had been hospitalized after collapsing during a command fitness test.
Dehydration.
Exhaustion.
Nothing serious.
I had been discharged the next morning.
But there was something else about that day.
Something I had not thought about in years.
A nurse had told me an older woman came asking for me.
I had assumed she had the wrong patient.
The woman had left before I woke up.
I looked at Damian.
Then at the desk full of letters.
My mother had not only tried to find me.
Fourteen years ago, she had found me.
The nurse’s face came back to me with irritating clarity.
She had worn purple glasses and kept a pen tucked behind one ear.
“Your aunt came by,” she had said while checking my blood pressure.
“I don’t have an aunt in California.”
“She seemed pretty sure she knew you.”
“What did she look like?”
The nurse had shrugged.
“Older.”
At twenty-six, everyone over fifty had looked older.
I had dismissed it.
The memory had become one of those useless hospital details that floated loose in the mind beside the taste of orange gelatin and the squeak of rubber soles in the hallway.
Now it stood in front of me with my mother’s face.
Marlene was still holding the typed note.
“Did she see you?”
“No.”
Damian looked at me.
“You’re sure?”
“I was unconscious when she came.”
“For how long?”
“A few hours.”
“Could she have waited?”
“I don’t know.”
That answer no longer felt harmless.
I sat down in the chair at the desk.
The wood creaked beneath me.
My mother used to sit there in the mornings with a cup of tea and a stack of household bills, writing checks in blue ink with absolute concentration.
I had not thought about that in years either.
Damian began opening the manila folder.
“Wait.”
He stopped.
“What?”
“We photograph everything first.”
He looked at me.
“Why?”
“Because somebody tried to get into the desk.”
May you like
“You think Dad will come here?”
“I think assuming he won’t would be stupid.”
