Chapter 10: Thirty-One Letters

Gage's POV

I had been going to say it carefully.

I had practiced for three days in a truck outside her cabin.

With her sitting on the floor in a gray dawn, holding a birth certificate, I said it plain.

"I think Eli's mine."

Her face went white, and then it went red.

"You think."

"I saw his eyes on Friday. I've got my mother's eyes, and so does he. I counted the months in the lot with my hand on the rail."

"You counted." She stood up with the paper in her fist. "You counted on Friday, and you've been in my bed, and you're telling me now?"

"I wasn't sure."

"You were sure enough to stand in my doorway for three nights."

"I was sure enough to be scared," I said. "I didn't want to hand you a story, and have it be wrong, and make you hate me for it."

"I'd rather hate you for the truth than love you for a guess."

She said love.

I don't think she heard herself.

She was shaking, and she didn't look like a woman who needed anyone to hold her.

She looked like a woman who needed an answer.

"Tell me what you've got," she said.

"The prison mail room called yesterday. It keeps a log of every letter that goes out."

"And?"

"Thirty-one letters addressed to you, care of the clubhouse. All posted. All signed for."

"By who?"

"B. Kimmel."

She sat back down on the mattress.

It was slow.

"He told me you cut everyone off," she said. "He told me you never wrote."

"He told me you'd moved on. He said you'd gone to your cousin's in Oregon and that you didn't want to hear from me."

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