“Emily,” he said.
I waited.
“I’m sorry.”
The words were ordinary. Too ordinary for four years of silence.
But he said them without defending himself.
That mattered.
“I believe you’re sorry,” I said. “I don’t know what to do with it yet.”
“You don’t have to.”
My mother remained inside the doorway.
She did not come out.
As Mr. Greer pulled away from the curb, the television lights faded behind us. The neighborhood disappeared into darkness, house by house.
I held the cardboard box against my chest.
At a red light, I opened it again.
The envelopes had been stacked in chronological order. Mr. Greer must have arranged them carefully.
On top was the oldest one.
I recognized the date immediately.
It had been written three months after I left home, when I was still in training and still believed that distance could be repaired with enough words.
I turned it over.
There was no REFUSED stamp.
No return address.
No mark from the postal system.
Only a thin line of blue ink across the flap.
The envelope had been opened, then sealed again.
I looked closer.
The handwriting on the front was mine, but the handwriting on the back—the note someone had written in the margin—was unfamiliar.
Mr. Greer glanced over.
“What is it?”
I could barely speak.
“Someone wrote on this.”
At the next light, he pulled over.
I held the envelope beneath the dashboard lamp.
The message contained only seven words:
Ask your father what happened to the money.
For four years, my parents told everyone I was in prison, until the day I came home wearing my Army uniform and my mother called3 005
