Chapter 10: The Envelope

Maggie's POV

Caleb brought the photograph to my kitchen on Saturday morning with a pot of soup and no explanation.

He set the soup on the stove.

Then he laid the picture on the table, face down, so I could read the back first.

To Daddy Russ, love Eli. Happy Father's Day.

I read it twice and turned it over.

The boy with the gap in his teeth looked up at me.

"Where did you get this?" I asked.

"Russ dropped it in a booth last night. He came to ask whether you'd called a clinic."

"I took Poppy for her checkup."

"That's what I figured."

I sat down.

Poppy was asleep in the bassinet by the window, and my mother was upstairs with the door closed.

I looked at the sandy hair, and the thick eyebrow, and the way the boy's mouth turned at one corner.

I thought of two fingers lifted off a steering wheel at the curb outside the school.

I thought of Russ saying, leave Eli out of it.

"Troy doesn't know," I said.

"I'd bet my diner on it."

"Troy has been paying that child's school fees."

"Yes."

"And he calls himself Dad on Fridays."

"Yes."

I put the photograph down very gently.

I had a feeling I knew well by now.

"I'm not going to take this to the town," I said. "He's a seven-year-old and it's not mine to tell."

"I'm not asking you to."

"Then why bring it?"

"Because Russ is going to try something," Caleb said. "I didn't want you to be hit by it."

I thanked him, and I meant it.

He poured two bowls and sat across from me, and we ate in silence.

It was a quiet, ordinary hour, and I let myself have it.

On Monday, the principal called again.

The school was holding a makeup Father & Child Breakfast on Friday.