He held it out.
I recognized the handwriting immediately.
“He left me a letter too,” Daniel said.
“Mr.
Hale gave it to me this morning.
I’ve read it four times.” His hand was steady but his voice had shifted slightly.
“He says I should trust you.
He says—” He stopped.
Swallowed.
“He says you’re the reason he bought the house on Maple Street.
He says he wants us to know each other.”
I took the envelope carefully.
“He says a lot of things,” Daniel continued, “about what he hoped would happen.
About what he believed.” A pause.
“What he doesn’t explain is why he never told me you existed.
Fifty-two years.
He never once mentioned your name.”
I looked down at the envelope in my hands.
“Eleanor,” he said, and it was the first time he’d used my name.
It came out differently than he intended, I think.
Rougher.
“Did he ever try to find you?
In all those years?”
I looked up.
“I don’t know,” I said honestly.
“I never tried to find him.”
Something moved across his face.
Not softness exactly.
But the first crack in the flatness.
“Mr.
Hale said there’s a letter,” he said.
“A second one.
That I only get after we’ve met.”
“I know.”
“What’s in it?”
