The Hard Version of Staying novel · Chapter 14 of 24

Chapter 14: Box 214

I did not sleep, and at nine the next morning I stood in line at the Port Alder post office with the shipping slip in my hand.

The slip said Box 214.

Eight people stood ahead of me.

I knew all of them, and they all knew about the grange.

Nobody said anything, but two of them moved aside to let me up to the counter.

The postmaster was a heavy man with reading glasses on his forehead who had sold me stamps for twenty years.

"Morning, Hanna," he said, low.

"Who rents Box 214?"

He took the glasses down and put them on.

"You know I can't tell you that."

"My name is on every package that goes into it."

"Then I'm sorry, but it's not your box." He glanced at the line, and back at me. "It's a federal thing. I'd lose my job."

"I'm not asking for the key. I'm asking whose name is on the card."

"Han."

The bell over the door rang behind me.

I knew his step before I turned around.

"There she is," Declan said, warm and carrying, so the whole room could hear. "I've been calling you all morning."

He walked up the line with his hand out.

He had shaved, and he wore a plain gray sweater, and he looked tired and kind.

"Sweetheart, come home," he said. "Let's not do this in public."

"You're the one who walked in," I said.

"Hanna thinks I'm hiding something in a mailbox." He said it to the line, with a small sad laugh. "She's under a lot of strain. Her doctor wants her resting."

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