Chapter 14: Desmond's Letter

Emmett was sitting on the back step of Rise & Salt when I got there, with an envelope on his knee.

He stood up as soon as he saw my face.

"Your mother," he said.

"She's fine. She's better than fine. Give it to me."

He didn't move.

"Tilda, I should say something first."

"Say it while I read."

I unlocked the back door and we went through the dark kitchen to the flour room, where the only chair was an upturned bucket.

I sat on it.

The envelope was thick cream paper gone soft at the corners, with my name on it in my father's square capitals.

I slid a thumbnail under the flap.

Matilda,

If Emmett has put this in your hand, you are free of whatever was holding you, and he has kept his word, which is more than I did.

You have a sister. Her name is Odette. She was born in March, and I have not found the nerve to meet her.

I am leaving her five percent of Lowry Freight. The lawyer has signed the paper that goes with this letter, and so have I.

It is not an apology. There isn't a size of apology that fits.

Your mother paid for my mistake every day for thirty years, and she never once made you carry it.

Be kinder to Odette than I was to her mother.

Dad

I read it to the end and then I read the last line again.

My eyes were wet, and I let them be.

The paper behind the letter was a single page with a notary's seal and a lawyer's initials in the margin.

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