Chapter 11: The Shoebox

I didn't tell Rafe where I was going.

I told my mother to take the kids to her house, and I told her I'd call by dinner.

Then I drove to the city with the bank copy on the passenger seat.

My phone lay face up beside it, the transfer still glowing on the screen.

D. Marsden. Account ending 4402.

Daphne worked until five. I knew her schedule.

I had a key to her apartment because I'd watered her plants in August.

She had gone to a wedding in Maine for two weeks.

She had pressed it into my hand at the airport and said, "You're the only person I'd give this to."

I let myself in at two.

The apartment smelled of lemon cleaner and the candle she always lit.

I didn't know what I was looking for.

I only knew it was here, because Daphne kept everything.

She had kept every card I'd ever sent her, every ticket stub, the key to her first dorm.

I checked the desk first. Then the shelf by the window, where she kept the framed photos.

There was one of the two of us at twenty, in cap and gown.

There was one of the three kids at the beach in matching hats, with Daphne squatting behind them, grinning.

I picked it up and put it back down.

In the bedroom closet, on the top shelf behind the winter blankets, there was a shoebox.

It was a plain white shoebox with a rubber band around it.

I took it down and sat on the edge of her bed.

I took the rubber band off, and it snapped.

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