Chapter 4: What the Letter Knew
The kitchen was quieter.
A caterer's assistant looked up when they entered, registered the small girl at Edna's side, and without being asked, set a plate of bread rolls and sliced fruit on the end of the counter before slipping back out.
Edna pulled out a stool.
"Here.
Eat something first."
Lily climbed up and reached for a roll without ceremony.
She was genuinely hungry.
That detail alone made Edna's chest tighten in a way she couldn't name.
She waited until the girl had eaten two rolls and some of the fruit.
Then she sat across from her.
"Tell me about your mama," she said.
"Not the end.
From before.
What was she like?"
Lily thought about it seriously.
"She was quiet.
She read a lot.
She had a garden but things kept dying in it and she thought that was funny." A small smile crossed her face and then faded.
"She cried sometimes at night.
She thought I was sleeping."
"Did she ever talk about her family?"
"She said she didn't have any.
Then she said she had one person but that person didn't know she existed anymore." Lily looked up.
"Is that you?"
Edna's throat closed.
"I think it might be," she said.
She opened her bag and took out the envelope.
She had been carrying it for six minutes and already it felt like it weighed more than everything else in the room combined.
She broke the seal carefully and unfolded two sheets of paper, the writing small and dense and immediately, unmistakably her sister Rose's hand.
*Edna.
If you're reading this, I'm g0ne and Lily found you the way I hoped she would.
I'm sorry it took this long.
I'm sorry for all of it.*
*I need to tell you what happened after the accident.
What they told you was not true.
I didn't leave.
I was taken.*
Edna stopped.
Read that line again.
She looked at Lily, who was watching her over the edge of a piece of apple with careful, patient eyes.
"Keep eating," Edna said softly.
She turned back to the letter.
*Douglas told you I died in the hospital.
He told the family I didn't survive.
He arranged it — the paperwork, the records, the certificate.
I don't know how much money it took or who helped him.
What I know is that I woke up in a different city with a different name and a social worker who believed I had no next of kin.
By the time I understood what had happened, I was too afraid to fight it.
He had made it very clear what would happen to you if I tried.*
The paper trembled slightly in Edna's hands.
*I want you to know I looked for a way back every single year.
I wrote letters I couldn't send.
I found your address three times and lost my nerve each time.
I wasn't protecting myself.
I was protecting you.
He told me what he was capable of and I believed him.*
*Clara was born fourteen months after I disappeared.
She is Douglas's daughter.
He doesn't know that I know he knows.
He found out when Clara was six and he sent someone to speak to me.
After that conversation I moved again and I didn't stop moving until Clara was grown.*
Edna set the letter down on the counter.
She pressed both palms flat on the surface and breathed.
"Are you okay?" Lily asked.
"I'm going to be," Edna said.
"Give me just a moment."
She picked the letter back up.
*Clara found the locket when I was in the hospital the last time.
I told her everything then.
I told her to find you, and I told her that the locket would prove what I could not prove with words alone.
But Clara g0t sick too, faster than either of us expected.
So she gave the locket to Lily.
She made Lily memorize your name and the name of this house.*
*An eight-year-old girl remembered what two grown women were too frightened to say out loud.*
*Edna, Douglas controls the Hale estate documents.
He controls what the family believes.
He has controlled the story of my de@th for twenty-two years and he is still in that room right now, probably on his phone, probably already working on his next lie.*
*The proof is not just in this letter.
There is a safety deposit box.
The key is sewn into the lining of Lily's bag, left interior seam.*
Edna looked at Lily's canvas bag hanging from the stool.
"Lily," she said.
"Your bag.
May I look at the inside lining?"
Lily handed it over without question.
Edna ran her fingers along the left seam.
Felt the small hard shape immediately.
She pressed it between her fingers through the fabric.
It was there.
The kitchen door swung open.
Douglas stood in the frame.
He had his phone in one hand and his expression was completely composed now, which was worse than when he had gone pale.
"Edna," he said pleasantly.
"It's getting late.
I think your young visitor's neighbor is probably waiting."
"She has another forty minutes," Edna said without looking up.
"Still.
A child this age.
On a school night."
"Sit down, Douglas."
"I'd rather—"
"I said sit down." She looked at him then.
"I've read the letter.
All of it."
May you like
The pleasantness left his face the way water leaves a broken glass.
Fast and completely.
