Chapter 19: The Letters

"Twenty-nine minutes, Host."

I let go of Birdie very slowly.

She looked up at me with glitter on her face from the sign.

"Did you see?" she said. "They put her in handcuffs. Real ones."

"I saw."

"You were the best one. Everybody said. A lady behind us cried into her husband's tie."

I knelt down in Mara's blue dress on the lobby carpet so we were the same height.

I fixed one of her braids, which didn't need fixing.

"Hey, Chief," I said. "Thank you for the sign."

"It's yours. You can keep it."

"I'll keep it."

I hugged her one more time, hard, and smelled her strawberry shampoo, and stood up before she could see my face.

Briggs was talking to the detective by the doors.

He looked back at me over her shoulder and lifted his chin. Five minutes, it meant.

I nodded.

Goldie was sitting on the bottom step of the grand staircase with her shoes off, rubbing one foot.

I sat down beside her.

"You were magnificent," she said. "I'm going to say it once, because I'm not a gusher. Magnificent."

"You were too. 'She put that can on my shelf.' Front page."

"I've been waiting seven years to say that in front of a reporter."

I took the three envelopes out of the inside pocket of my coat.

She looked at the names on the front.

GOLDIE. BRIGGS. BIRDIE, FOR NOVEMBER 8TH.

Her face changed.

"What's this?"

"Open yours tomorrow. Give Briggs his tomorrow. Keep Birdie's till her birthday."

"Romy."

"Tomorrow, Goldie. Promise me."

She looked at me over her glasses for a long time.

"I don't like this," she said.

"I know. Promise."

"I promise," she said, and she didn't look like she meant it.

Keep reading free with an account. Start The Night Before We Got Married from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.