If something happens, take care of our daughter.
Do not come for me. Promise me.
My vision blurred.
Our daughter.
Carl had not been fulfilling a promise to a mysterious friend.
He had been watching over his own child.
Me.
A sound escaped my throat, half laugh and half sob.
All those Thursdays.
All those hours sitting beside him.
He had known.
When I complained that I had inherited my stubbornness from a father I never met, he had smiled and looked away.
When I told him I had no family left after Aunt Nora’s d/e/@/th, he had reached for my hand and then stopped himself.
He had been my father.
And he had allowed me to call him Carl.
My grief transformed into something jagged.
“You coward,” I whispered.
The word struck the empty cabin.
“You absolute coward.”
I wanted to throw the letters into the fireplace. I wanted to preserve every one. I wanted to drive back to the city and demand answers from a man who could no longer give them.
