Chapter 7: The Safe

At five the next morning the yard was gray and silent and smelled like river mud.

Myra had a flashlight in her teeth.

She crouched in front of the old green safe in the marina office, turning the dial with two fingers.

Boone stood behind her with his arms crossed, wearing his PT shirt.

"Dad gave me the combination in case he died," Myra said around the flashlight.

She took it out of her mouth.

"He said it was the date his boys were born. First Dixon's, then yours. Your mother might have changed it."

"She changes the sheets on my childhood bed once a week," I said. "She doesn't change safes."

"Right. Quiet."

The dial clicked.

She tried the last number, and the handle turned.

The door swung open.

Inside there were old deeds in a rubber band, a cash box, and a gray plastic mail tub.

I felt the whole room go cold.

Myra lifted it out and set it on the desk.

It was full of envelopes.

All of them were handwritten, and all of them were mine.

I knew the shape of every one.

Each said "Brynn Teller, 14 Marsh Hen Lane, Beaufort, SC" in my blocky capitals, with a military return address in the corner.

I picked up a bundle.

Rubber bands held them in stacks of ten.

I counted the stacks.

Forty-one letters.

I'd written one a week for fourteen months.

Twenty-nine were slit open along the top.

The other twelve were sealed, soft with handling.

"She read most of them," Boone said quietly.

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