Chương 6
“What did he do?”
“I don’t know.”
“You read the letter.”
“I read the first page.”
“And?”
“And then I stopped.”
“Why?”
This time, Mara was quiet long enough that Daniel almost thought the call had dropped.
“Because his name was next to someone else’s.”
Daniel sat down slowly.
“Whose?”
“I don’t know if I should tell you over the phone.”
His frustration rose immediately.
“Why does everyone suddenly think they get to decide what I’m allowed to know?”
“Because you’re acting like you don’t understand what this is.”
“What is it?”
“It’s not just a letter.”
Daniel looked at the empty place on the table.
“What does that mean?”
“It means Dad didn’t write it because he missed us.”
The words landed harder than he expected.
Mara continued before he could respond.
“He wrote it because something happened.”
Daniel stared at the wall.
“What something?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“You just said there was a name.”
“Yes.”
“Whose name?”
“Daniel.”
“What?”
“I’m coming over.”
“No.”
“Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Turn this into a fight because you’re scared.”
The accusation bothered him because it was accurate enough to feel unfair.
“I’m not scared.”
“Okay.”
That single word annoyed him.
“What?”
“I said okay.”
“You don’t believe me.”
“No.”
He stood up.
“Mara.”
“I’m not trying to win.”
“Then what are you doing?”
“I’m trying to make sure you don’t spend another eleven years being angry at the wrong person.”
The call ended before he could answer.
Daniel stood in the kitchen for a long time.
The apartment felt different now.
Not haunted.
He hated that word.
It was too easy.
Too dramatic.
The truth was worse.
The apartment contained pieces of a person he had spent years trying to understand.
His father’s repaired chair.
The old toolbox still sitting in the hall closet.
A coffee mug Daniel had never thrown away because the handle was cracked in the same place as his father’s favorite mug.
Small things.
Annoying things.
Things that survived longer than the conversations did.
He walked to the table and picked up the envelope.
The paper was heavier than it looked.
His father had always used thick stationery. Daniel remembered teasing him about it when he was younger.
“You write three sentences like you’re signing a treaty.”
His father had smiled without looking up.
“Words matter more when you can’t take them back.”
At the time, Daniel thought it was another one of his father’s strange sayings.
Now it felt different.
He opened the letter.
The handwriting was unmistakable.
The first line was simple.
Daniel,
I should have told you the truth before I asked you to forgive me.
He stopped reading.
Not because he wanted to.
Because the sentence had already changed something.
His father was not explaining himself.
He was admitting he had failed.
The next paragraph was shorter.
Thomas wrote that he had kept something from Daniel and Mara because he believed he was protecting them. He wrote that he knew there was a difference between protecting people and controlling what they were allowed to know.
Daniel read that sentence twice.
Then the next one.
There is a woman named Evelyn Price. She deserves to know what happened before I am gone.
Daniel lowered the page.
A name.
That was all Mara had meant.
A name that belonged to someone neither of them knew.
His phone rang.
Mara again.
He answered.
“I saw the name.”
A pause.
“You opened it.”
“Yes.”
“Are you okay?”
Daniel looked at the letter.
“No.”
At least that answer felt honest.
Mara was quiet.
Then she said, “Good.”
He almost smiled despite himself.
“That’s a terrible thing to say.”
“I know.”
“You could try sounding like you care.”
“I do care.”
“Your methods are strange.”
“They always have been.”
That was true enough that neither of them argued.
A few seconds passed.
“Who is Evelyn Price?” Daniel asked.
“I don’t know.”
“You said you stopped reading.”
“I did.”
“Why would Dad write her name?”
“I don’t know.”
Daniel looked back at the letter.
At the bottom of the first page was something he had not noticed before.
A date.
Twenty years earlier.
The same year their family moved out of their old house.
The same year their father stopped talking about his work.
The same year he told Daniel that some mistakes were better left buried.
“Mara.”
“What?”
“There’s a date.”
“What date?”
He read it aloud.
The silence afterward was immediate.
Because she knew the year too.
Neither of them spoke for several seconds.
Then Mara said, “Daniel, where did that letter come from?”
He looked at the envelope.
The return address was printed in faded ink.
A town he recognized.
A place his father had never mentioned.
“Ohio.”
“What?”
“It’s from Ohio.”
Mara’s breathing changed.
“Dad never lived in Ohio.”
“No.”
“He never worked there.”
“I know.”
“Then why would someone there have his letter?”
Daniel didn’t answer.
Because another thought had arrived.
A worse one.
The envelope had been mailed two days ago.
Eleven years after his father’s death.
And someone in Ohio had known exactly when to send it.
Before he could say anything, Mara spoke.
“Daniel.”
“Yeah?”
“I didn’t tell you everything I saw.”
He looked down at the page.
“What else was there?”
A long pause.
Then:
“Another envelope.”
Daniel’s grip tightened.
“Where is it?”
“I don’t know.”
The answer came too quickly.
He noticed.
“Mara.”
“I put it back.”
“Where?”
“Daniel.”
“Where?”
She didn’t respond.
And for the first time since the letter arrived, Daniel felt something stronger than confusion.
Fear.
Not of what his father had done.
Of what someone else was still trying to finish.
“Mara, where did you put the second envelope?”
When she finally answered, her voice was barely above a whisper.
“I didn’t.”
Daniel froze.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean it was gone before I left.”
The room seemed to shrink around him.
May you like
“You’re saying someone took it?”
“I’m saying when I came in, there were two envelopes.”
