“Not for money.”
“I didn’t ask what you didn’t come for.”
“I know.”
“Then answer me.”
She folded her hands in her lap.
“My mother died three years ago.”
The anger in me slowed.
Only slightly.
“She never told me who my father was while she was alive,” Clara continued. “She said he had another life and that some doors were kinder left closed.”
“And after she died?”
“I found letters.”
“What letters?”
“From him.”
My father.
The words landed differently now.
I sat again because my legs suddenly felt unreliable.
Clara swallowed.
“They were in a wooden box behind some old blankets in her closet. There were twelve of them. Some from before I was born. Some from afterward.”
I looked at Mother.
“Did you know about those?”
“No.”
Clara continued.
“My mother had kept them all.”
“What did they say?”
“That he knew about me. That he wanted to help. That he cared.”
