Chapter 7: What the Solicitor Said
Mr.
Hartley came on the line after four minutes.
"Mrs.
Marsh." His voice was measured, professional, the voice of a man accustomed to delivering information that changed things.
"Thank you for calling.
I want to say first that we have been attempting to locate you for some time."
"I saw the notice," I said.
"My daughter found it."
"Yes.
We placed it in several local papers over the past six months.
I'm relieved it reached you." A brief pause.
"I represent the estate of Robert Calloway."
The word *estate* landed before the rest of the sentence caught up.
"He passed away," I said.
"Five months ago," Mr.
Hartley said.
"I'm very sorry."
I looked at the eleventh letter on my kitchen table.
Eight months ago.
He had written it eight months ago, and five months ago he had been gone, and the letter had sat in my mother's wardrobe through all of it.
"What does his estate have to do with me?" I asked.
"Mr.
Calloway made a specific provision in his will," Mr.
Hartley said.
"He left instructions that you were to be located and informed of its contents directly, in person if possible.
He was quite particular about that."
"What kind of provision?"
"Mrs.
Marsh, I would prefer to explain the details in person.
There are documents involved, and the matter is somewhat — " He paused, choosing his word carefully.
"Layered."
"Can you tell me anything now?"
A brief silence.
"I can tell you that Mr.
Calloway left a letter to be delivered to you personally.
It is separate from the legal documents.
He wrote it himself, by hand, and he asked that it be given to you before anything else was discussed."
I thought of the eleven letters on my table.
A twelfth one, then.
The one he had always meant to write but had left to a solicitor to deliver.
"When can I come in?" I said.
We arranged it for the following morning.
I spent the rest of that day doing ordinary things.
I filled the bird feeder.
I called Cara to check on the grandchildren.
I made soup from the leftover chicken in the refrigerator and ate it at the kitchen table with the letters pushed to one side.
That evening, Daniel called.
"Sarah told me you rang the solicitor," he said.
"I did."
"And?"
"I'm going in tomorrow morning."
A pause.
"Do you want me to come with you?"
I had expected him to say something cautious.
To say it might be nothing, or that I shouldn't get my hopes up, or that thirty years was a long time and people changed.
"Yes," I said.
"I'd like that."
He was at my door at eight-thirty the next morning with two coffees in a carrier and his coat already on.
We drove mostly in silence.
Daniel was not a man who filled silence unnecessarily, which was one of the things I had always been grateful for in him.
The solicitor's office was on a quiet street near the town center.
A brass plate beside the door.
A receptionist who offered us tea we both declined.
Mr.
Hartley was a man in his sixties with careful eyes and a desk that held nothing unnecessary.
He shook my hand, then Daniel's, and gestured to the chairs across from him.
"Before we discuss the estate," he said, "Mr.
Calloway's letter."
He opened a drawer and placed an envelope on the desk between us.
It was addressed in a hand I now knew well.
Slightly formal.
Precise.
Faded blue ink.
*For Eleanor.
To be opened by her alone.*
Daniel stood up immediately.
"I'll wait outside."
"You don't have to — " I started.
"Mom." He put his hand briefly on my shoulder.
"I'll be right outside the door."
He left.
Mr.
Hartley excused himself with a quiet word about giving me privacy and followed Daniel out.
I sat alone in that office with Robert's last letter in my hands.
I opened it.
It was four pages.
The handwriting was slightly less steady than the earlier letters — the hand of a man who had been ill, I thought, writing carefully against the tremor.
I will not set down everything he wrote.
Some of it belongs only to me.
But near the end of the fourth page, he wrote something I had not expected.
*I have a son, Eleanor.
James.
I told you about him in one of my letters, though I was never sure you received it.
James is twenty-eight now.
He is a good man.
His mother and I were not unhappy together, and I want you to know that.
But there is something about James I never told anyone, because I didn't know how, and because for a long time I told myself it didn't matter.*
*James was born in the spring.
Eight months after you and I last saw each other on that platform.*
*I have done the arithmetic many times over thirty years.
I have been afraid to do anything with it.
I told myself it was impossible.
I told myself I was imagining things because I wanted them to be true.*
*But James has your eyes, Eleanor.
He has always had your eyes.
And last year, when he was ill and needed a blood test, I learned something that made the arithmetic impossible to ignore any longer.*
*I am not asking you to upend your life.
I am not asking for anything.
I am only asking you to meet him.
Once.
So that you can decide for yourself.*
*James knows I wrote this letter.
He agreed to it.
He is a grown man and he has made his own peace with uncertainty.
But he deserves the truth, whatever it turns out to be.
And so do you.*
*I'm sorry it took me this long.
I should have found a way to reach you sooner.
I should have tried harder.
I know that.*
*I hope you've been happy, Eleanor.
I truly do.*
*Robert.*
I sat in that office for a long time after I finished reading.
Then I folded the letter along its creases, put it back in the envelope, and went to the door.
Daniel was standing in the hallway with his coffee cup in both hands.
He looked at my face.
"Mom," he said quietly.
"What is it?"
May you like
"I need you to sit back down with me," I said.
"There's something I have to tell you."
