Chapter 3: What the Letter Said
I set the photograph on the table between us and smoothed the letter flat with both hands.
Carl's handwriting.
I hadn't seen it in thirteen years, and my chest tightened just looking at the shape of the letters.
I read the first line out loud without meaning to.
*"If you're reading this, then your father finally kept his promise.
I'm sorry it took this long.
I'm sorry for all of it."*
"Dad." I looked up.
"What does he mean, kept his promise?"
"Keep reading," he said quietly.
"Please."
I looked back down.
*"The night Emily was taken to the hospital, something happened that the doctors didn't tell you.
I need you to understand that I wanted to.
I tried to.
But by the time I understood what it meant, they had already made it very clear what would happen if I did."*
I stopped.
"They?
Who is they?"
My father didn't answer.
I kept reading.
*"Emily didn't d*e from the illness, sweetheart.
She was taken.
The people who took her had connections inside that hospital.
I know how that sounds.
But I have proof.
I've spent thirteen years collecting it.
I couldn't come back to you without it, because coming back without proof meant they would have come for Lily next."*
The letter slipped from my fingers.
"Dad." My voice didn't sound like mine.
"He's saying Emily didn't d*e."
He pressed his lips together and nodded once.
"Is that true?" I stood up so fast the chair scraped back.
"Is that actually true?
Because if you are sitting there telling me that my daughter has been alive for thirteen years and you knew—"
"I didn't know for certain." His voice cracked.
"Not at first.
Carl came to me two weeks after he left.
He showed me what he had.
It wasn't enough to go to the police.
Not then.
The people involved — they had reach.
Carl was afraid for you.
He was afraid for Lily.
He begged me to keep you both safe and let him work."
"Let him work." I laughed, and it came out wrong.
"He was my husband.
Emily was my daughter.
And the two of you decided together that I didn't need to know."
"We decided you needed to be alive." His voice broke on the last word.
I turned away from him.
My hands were pressed flat on the counter.
The kitchen was quiet.
The dishes I'd been washing were still sitting in the rack.
I thought about the last thirteen years.
Every birthday.
Every school play.
Every night I'd sat on the edge of Lily's bed and thought about how different it would have been with two of them.
"Where is she?" I said.
"Where is Emily now?"
My father was quiet for a long moment.
"That's what the rest of the letters will tell you."
I turned back around.
"Then I need to read all of them.
Tonight."
He nodded.
But his expression didn't lift the way it should have.
There was something else sitting behind his eyes.
Something he still hadn't said.
"Dad.
Is there something else?"
He looked at the box.
"The last envelope," he said.
"Read the others first.
Save that one for last."
I looked at the box.
At the bottom, beneath all the letters, there was one more envelope.
Thicker than the rest.
No date on the outside.
May you like
Just my name, written in handwriting I didn't recognize.
It wasn't Carl's.
