Chapter 6: Six A.M.

The letter was four pages long, written on the cream paper my mother used for thank-you notes.

My dearest Delia, it began.

If you are reading this, I kept the promise I made to you in the lobby, and you kept yours.

I have to tell you what I did.

I'm going to say it plainly, because you hate it when I go around a thing.

I paid them.

I read the line three times.

I paid your father, and your brother, and your sister, to say the word.

Walter got six thousand dollars a month, Cal got four, and Lorna got three.

It came out of my share of the company.

I put it in the white envelopes so nobody would see it in the books you keep.

Your father's came through the bank, and he thought I didn't know that he spent it on his boat.

I put the letter down on the quilt.

My hands were not working.

Theo's breathing went on beside me, slow and even.

I picked the pages up again.

Your grandmother never took a cent.

I only asked her, and she loved me enough to say yes. Please don't be hard on her.

My own word at the cake tasting was honest, Delia, and it was the worst thing I have ever done.

I looked at that cake and I could not bear it.

I thought, if she marries him, she will move to the island, and she will stop answering the phone.

Your father never told you this part, because he doesn't know it.

My heart is failing. It has been failing for three years.

The doctor in Portland told me I might have five more, and he was generous.

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