Chapter 17: The Letters She Wrote

Rafe's garage sat at the end of a gravel road, forty minutes from my apartment.

It had two bays and a hand-painted sign that said "Stender Auto."

I had never been there before.

He unlocked the side door on Friday evening and flipped on a row of fluorescent lights.

It smelled like oil and cold metal.

A gray tarp covered something low and long in the second bay, and a radio on a shelf was tuned to nothing.

He led me through the back to a narrow staircase.

"I live up there," he said. "It's not much."

At the top was a single long room with a bed, a table and a window that looked out on a field.

On the table sat a battered shoebox with a rubber band around it.

"Dad's letters?" I said.

"And hers."

He took the rubber band off.

The envelopes were soft at the corners, in two stacks.

The taller stack was in my father's slanted handwriting, and my chest hurt when I saw it.

The shorter stack was in blue ballpoint.

I knew the round, careful hand from the Christmas lists she used to leave on the fridge.

"Victoria wrote you?"

"For six years. Dad mailed them for her."

He held one out.

I unfolded it on the table.

It was dated the week she turned thirteen.

"Dear Rafe, Dad says I can write to you now."

"I have my own room and the door locks."

"A girl at school let me sit with her at lunch."

"Please don't be sad. I'm okay. I think about the bike."

Under it, in the same blue pen, she had drawn a small crooked bicycle.

Keep reading free with an account. Start My Fiancé and Brothers Left Me at the Altar for My Adopted Sister from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.