Chapter 5: The Letter With No Return Address
Jace didn't show me the letter right away.
I noticed it because he came in from the mailbox and went straight upstairs without stopping to drop his bag at the door the way he always did.
I heard his bedroom door close — not slam, just close, deliberately, like he needed a wall between himself and the rest of the house.
I gave him an hour.
Then I knocked.
"Come in."
He was sitting on the edge of his bed, the letter in his hands.
He'd folded it back into the envelope.
He looked at me when I entered, and I could see he'd been deciding something.
"You should read it," he said, and held it out.
I took it.
Sat in the chair at his desk.
Unfolded the single page inside.
The handwriting was small and cramped, like someone who had learned to fit a lot into a small space.
*Jace.
I know where you ended up.
I know who took you in.
You think you're safe now.
You think you've found something permanent.
But there are things about your mother's situation that you don't know.
Things that were kept from you.
Before you get too comfortable, you need to know the truth about what happened to her — and who was responsible.
Meet me.
I'll be at Riverside Park, the east bench near the fountain, Saturday at noon.
Come alone.
Don't tell your new family.
If you do, you'll never hear what I know.*
No signature.
I read it twice.
Then I set it down on the desk.
"Do you know who sent this?" I asked.
"I have an idea," Jace said.
"There was a man.
He used to come around when we were still with our mom.
She called him her cousin, but I don't think that's what he was.
His name was Roy." He paused.
"After she got sick, he disappeared.
I always thought he knew more about what happened than he let on."
"What do you mean, what happened to her?
You told me she passed away."
"She did." Jace looked at his hands.
"But it was fast.
She was fine, and then she wasn't, and then she was gone in six weeks.
I was thirteen.
Nobody explained anything to me.
The caseworker just came and took us." He looked up.
"I always wondered."
I kept my voice steady.
"You're not going to that park alone."
"I know."
"And you're not going at all until we figure out who this person is and what they actually want."
Jace nodded.
But then he said: "What if he does know something?
About my mom?"
I looked at him — this boy who had navigated foster homes and agency files and public obituaries all by himself, trying to build something safe for his four-year-old sister.
Who had walked into a support group once and been seen by my sister, who had written about him in a journal I'd carried for four years without knowing his name.
"Then we find out together," I said.
"All of us."
He let out a long breath.
Some of the tension went with it.
"Okay," he said.
I picked up the letter again and looked at the postmark.
Local.
Sent two days ago.
Whoever Roy was, he wasn't far away.
And he knew exactly where Jace was living.
May you like
That was the part that stayed with me long after Jace had gone to sleep — not the letter's contents, but the fact that someone had been watching closely enough to know our address, our family, and Jace's name.
And had chosen, very deliberately, to reach out now.
