Chapter 13: Orchard Street

Kurt let the curtain fall.

"Back door," he said. "Now."

"No."

He looked at me.

"I'm done sneaking out of rooms," I said. "She gave me this key when we were twelve. I'm walking out the front."

I snapped the lid on the shoebox and held it against my chest.

Kurt took his phone from his pocket, pressed record, and slid it into his breast pocket with the lens facing out.

"After you," he said.

We were in the front hall when the door opened.

Tanya stepped in with the grocery sack on her hip, still laughing at something Lowell had said.

She saw me, and the laugh stopped.

The sack hit the floor.

An orange rolled across the boards and stopped against my shoe.

"Emmeline," she said. "What are you doing in my house?"

"Reading my mail."

I lifted the lid.

Lowell came in behind her and filled the doorway.

He looked at the box, then at Kurt, and his face stayed pleasant.

"Sergeant Gleason," he said. "This is trespassing. I hope you know that."

"I have a key," I said. "Dozens of letters in here are addressed to me and my daughter."

"Those are private," Tanya said. Her voice cracked. "You can't take those."

"Watch me."

Tanya lunged for the box.

Kurt stepped between us without touching her.

"Ma'am," he said quietly. "Don't."

She screamed.

It was a thin, high scream, the kind she used when she wanted a room to look at her.

"Help!" she shrieked. "They broke in! He's going to hurt me!"

The front door was still open.

Across Orchard Street, an old man dropped his watering can.

Two women came out on their porches.

A man walking a dog stopped at the curb.

I walked out onto Tanya's porch with the shoebox in both arms.

"Everybody listen," I said. "This is my husband's mail."

My voice shook, and I kept going.

"He wrote me every week for fourteen months. Tanya opened every letter, wrote 'not yet' on it, and put it in her closet."

Keep reading free with an account. Start He Sent Every Dollar, So Why Was My Daughter Starving? from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.