Chapter 24: The Door

My father brought the letter up from the diner on Monday morning, before sunrise, with the mail.

It was a plain white envelope with my name on it in my mother's handwriting.

I knew the hand.

It had signed every permission slip I'd ever carried to school.

"I didn't read it," Dad said. "I didn't want to know before you did."

"Thanks."

"You don't have to open it, Sam."

"I know."

I stood in Waylon's kitchen in my coat with the envelope in one hand and the brass key in the other.

Then I carried it upstairs and put it in the nightstand drawer in the spare room, under a cake server.

I shut the drawer.

I didn't put it in the trash.

I didn't open it, either.

Maybe I would, someday, when it could be a letter and not a hook.

"Ready?" Waylon said, from the bottom of the stairs.

"Ready."

His dispatcher had called back on Saturday to say the Buffalo account had agreed to hold the route.

Their owner had watched a clip someone posted from a country club, she said.

He had asked whether the driver in the suit was theirs.

Waylon had not told me that part until I asked what the dispatcher said.

He studied the road while he said it.

The blue semi was parked at the end of the drive with the engine already warm.

I climbed up into the passenger seat, which sat higher than I'd expected.

I found a thermos, a blanket and a second cup holder that had never been used.

"My aunt filled it," Waylon said.

"Your aunt did this?"

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