Chapter 23: Without a Clause

The letter lay on the nightstand in a grey prison envelope, and I did not open it.

Stuart stood at the foot of the bed in his shirtsleeves with a twin asleep on each forearm.

"I can have it read and summarized," he said. "I can have it burned. Or you can read it yourself."

"Ask me properly."

"Willa. Do you want it?"

"No."

I picked it up between two fingers.

I wrote *Return to sender* across the front with the pencil I used for sketching, and I handed it to him.

"Send it back."

"Unopened?"

"Whatever she has to say, she can say to a wall."

He nodded and slid it into his pocket.

I looked at the two sleeping faces and felt nothing I needed to hurry.

"I told you I'd name a place," I said.

"You did."

"The pier. Cold Spring. Tomorrow at six in the morning."

His eyes went bright.

"Just us?"

"And them."

We drove up before dawn with the stroller in the trunk and the twins in the back, strapped into their seats.

The lake was grey and flat, and the sky above the hills had just begun to pale.

The baker had left the bakery door unlocked and a thermos of coffee on the counter with a note.

*Take your time. Bread can wait.*

The old fishermen were at the end of the pier with their nets.

They saw us come down the hill, and they went on working.

I walked halfway out, to where the wind was loudest.

I stopped in the same place I had stood that winter.

Stuart came up beside me with Jack in the crook of one arm.

I took Flora from the stroller and held her against my shoulder.

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