Chapter 7: The Weight of Forty-Five Years
Gerald called four more times that evening.
I didn't answer any of them.
By the fifth call, I turned the phone over and left it on the counter and went to bed, though I didn't sleep much.
In the morning, David called at seven-thirty.
"I spoke to someone at the DA's office last night," he said.
"Informally.
Off the record.
She's interested."
I sat up in bed.
"Already?"
"The threatening text helped.
That's not the behavior of an innocent man, Margaret.
That's the behavior of someone who knows exactly what's in that notebook." He paused.
"She wants to meet with you, me, and Ruth this week.
She also wants to speak with Thomas directly."
"Thomas said he'd cooperate."
"Good.
There's one more thing." David's voice was careful now, the way it got when he was about to say something he'd rehearsed.
"She's going to want to know if there's any physical evidence.
The notebook is strong, and the text message is useful, but forty-five years is a long time.
If there's anything else—"
"I don't know what else there could be," I said.
"Neither do I.
But sometimes these things have a way of surfacing once people start talking." A pause.
"How are you holding up?"
"I don't know yet."
"That's an honest answer."
After I hung up, I made coffee and stood at the kitchen window.
The sunflowers on the porch had begun to droop slightly at the edges — still bright, still yellow, but starting to feel the weight of time.
Ruth called at nine.
"I couldn't sleep," she said.
"I kept thinking about something.
When Danny was in the hospital — the last two days — Gerald came to see him."
I set my coffee cup down.
"Gerald visited Danny in the hospital?"
"Yes.
I didn't think much of it at the time.
I thought he was being kind.
They were childhood friends." Her voice was careful.
"But Danny was very upset after the visit.
He wouldn't tell me why.
He just said, 'Mom, make sure the notebook is safe.' Those were almost his last words to me."
The kitchen was very quiet.
"Gerald knew about the notebook," I said.
"I think he came to the hospital to find out if Danny had told anyone.
And Danny was smart enough not to tell him." Ruth's voice broke slightly.
"He was so young.
He was so frightened.
And he still protected everyone."
I thought about Gerald sitting across from me on the sofa yesterday — the speed of that door closing behind his eyes when he saw Ruth.
He had known for forty-five years.
He had married me knowing.
He had sat at my table, slept in my house, held my children, and known.
"Ruth," I said.
"I want to ask you something, and I need you to be honest with me."
"Of course."
"Did Danny love me?
Or is that something I've been telling myself?"
A long pause.
"Margaret.
He wrote you a letter at seventeen years old and asked his dying mother to deliver it forty-five years later.
He counted every year he wouldn't be there.
He made sure you'd have sixty sunflowers even from wherever he went." Her voice was soft and certain.
"What do you think?"
I didn't answer.
I didn't need to.
"Come to my house this afternoon," Ruth said.
"I have more of his things.
Letters he wrote but never sent.
Drawings.
I want you to see them.
I should have found you years ago.
I'm sorry it took me this long."
"You kept your promise," I said.
"That's not nothing."
"No," she said.
"But it's not enough either."
I arrived at Ruth's house at two o'clock.
It was a small house, neat and warm, with photographs covering nearly every surface.
Danny was in many of them — as a baby, as a boy, as the teenager I remembered.
Ruth led me to the back bedroom, where a cedar chest sat at the foot of the bed.
She opened it.
Inside were stacks of letters, tied with string.
Drawings on loose paper.
A pressed sunflower, brown with age, between two pieces of wax paper.
And at the bottom, a small envelope with my name on it in handwriting I now recognized.
*Margaret — not yet.*
"He wrote that one the week before the fire," Ruth said.
"He never told me what was inside.
He just said it wasn't time yet."
My hands were steady as I picked it up.
"May I open it?"
May you like
"It has your name on it," Ruth said.
"It always did."
