Chapter 4: The Woman at the Door
I walked to the front door before my father could speak.
"Don't." His voice came from behind me, sharp and low.
"Do not open that door."
I opened it.
She was standing on the top step in a gray coat, her dark hair pulled back, her hands folded in front of her.
She was tall.
She had my father's jaw, his straight nose, his careful posture.
If I had passed her on the street, I might have felt something without knowing why.
"Nora?" I said.
"Yes." Her voice was quiet.
"I'm sorry.
I know this is strange.
I almost didn't come."
"I'm glad you did." I stepped back.
"Please come in."
"She is not coming into my house." My father was behind me now.
I could feel him there without turning around.
I turned around anyway.
"This is not your house," I said.
"You rented this venue for one evening.
I paid for it."
He stared at me.
I held the door open wider.
Nora stepped inside.
She stood in the entryway and looked at my father with an expression I recognized.
I had worn it myself, many times.
It was the face of someone who has rehearsed a moment for years and now cannot find the first word.
"Mr.
Calloway," she said finally.
My father said nothing.
He was looking at her the way someone looks at a document they were hoping had been lost.
"I'm not here to cause trouble," Nora said.
"I only wanted to know if it was true.
If you were — " She stopped.
Steadied herself.
"My mother passed away last year.
She left me a box of letters.
I spent six months trying to decide whether to come."
"Your mother should have kept those letters to herself," my father said.
The hallway went very still.
Eleanor made a sound, low and sharp, from the doorway behind him.
Nora's chin lifted, just slightly.
"She kept quiet for thirty-eight years," she said.
"She raised me alone.
She never asked you for anything.
She didn't even tell me your name until she was in hospice care.
And the only thing she asked me before she passed was to find out whether you ever thought about us at all."
My father crossed his arms.
"I don't owe you an answer."
"Richard." Eleanor's voice was steel.
"She is standing in front of you.
She has her mother's eyes and your nose and she came here alone because she was brave enough to try.
The least you can do is say her name."
He didn't say her name.
He turned away instead, moving back toward the dining room with that same measured walk he used when he wanted everyone to understand that he was the one ending the conversation.
Nora watched him go.
She didn't move.
Her hands were still folded in front of her and her face was composed in a way that looked like it had taken years to learn.
"I'm sorry," I said.
"I just found out tonight.
I didn't know you existed."
She looked at me.
"You're his daughter."
"Yes.
My name is Claire."
Something shifted in her expression.
Not quite a smile.
Something more complicated.
"He talks about you," she said.
"My mother saved every letter.
In the last one, before he stopped writing, he mentioned that his wife was expecting a girl.
He said he hoped she'd have her mother's temperament." She paused.
"He sounded happy."
I didn't know what to do with that sentence.
It sat in my chest like something too heavy to carry and too important to set down.
"He found out about you," Eleanor said from the doorway.
"That's why he stopped writing.
Diane told him in a letter.
He never wrote back."
Nora turned to look at Eleanor.
"You knew my mother?"
"I knew of her.
Richard told me once, years ago, when he'd had too much to drink.
He made me promise not to tell anyone." Eleanor's voice was even, but her eyes were bright.
"I kept that promise longer than I should have."
From the dining room, I heard my brother's voice rising above the others.
Loud, comfortable, certain.
The voice of someone who had never once been told they were the problem.
Nora heard it too.
She glanced toward the sound.
"Is that — "
"My brother," I said.
"He doesn't know either."
She nodded slowly.
Then she reached into her coat pocket and drew out an envelope, folded and worn at the edges.
"My mother asked me to give this to him," she said.
"To your father.
I've been carrying it for four months."
She held it out to me.
"I don't think I can give it to him myself," she said.
"Not tonight."
I took the envelope.
My name was not on it.
My father's was.
Written in handwriting I didn't recognize, in ink that had faded to a soft brown.
Behind me, I heard footsteps returning from the dining room.
My brother's voice carried down the hall.
"Dad?
What's going on?
Who's at the door?"
Nora looked at me.
May you like
I looked at the envelope in my hand.
The footsteps got closer.
