Chapter 3 - The Letter
Vincent’s face went completely still.
“I never wrote that.”
“Of course you didn’t.”
“Nora—”
“Don’t say my name like you know me.”
June took my hand beneath the desk.
I hadn’t meant to tell him about the letter.
I had found it after the funeral, folded inside a tin where Mom kept old receipts and birthday candles.
Twenty-five thousand dollars.
No further contact.
No claim against the Vale family.
At the bottom was a signature.
Vincent Vale.
“I was pregnant when she left?” he asked.
His voice was so quiet I almost missed it.
“You’re asking me?”
He put both hands on the desk.
“Please.
Let me see the letter.”
“No.”
I stood.
“My mother worked double shifts until her feet swelled.
When she got sick, she apologized because I had to drop out of school.
You don’t get to look sad for ten minutes and turn that into being a father.”
He lowered his eyes.
“You’re right.”
I had expected anger.
His agreement made me angrier.
Ruth offered us a ride.
I refused that too.
June and I took the bus to my apartment above a laundromat.
The dryers downstairs rattled through the floor while I opened the tin.
June read the letter twice.
“Did your mom ever show you this?”
“No.”
“Did she say he sent it?”
“No.”
I sat down.
That difference had never occurred to me.
Under the letter was an envelope addressed in Mom’s handwriting.
Nora, when I can explain this properly.
It wasn’t sealed.
Inside was one page.
Baby,
There are things I waited too long to tell you.
I thought I was keeping danger away from you.
Then keeping quiet became a habit, and I didn’t know how to stop without losing the person you believed I was.
Vincent doesn’t know about you.
I read that sentence until the words stopped making sense.
June whispered, “There’s more.”
If anything happens before we talk, take the brass key to South Station.
Locker 214.
Ask for no one.
Trust nothing with Adrian Vale’s name on it.
The key lay beneath a bundle of old rubber bands.
My phone rang.
An unfamiliar number.
I answered without thinking.
Adrian’s voice was warm.
“Nora.
May you like
You left so quickly.
I think we should discuss what your mother stole.”
