He Had Me Drowned, Then Wept at My Grave novel · Chapter 24 of 24
Chapter 24: Whoever Wept
I read it on the river, at dusk, on the end of the pier below the pilot station, with Anders beside me and the whole Columbia going gold.
I hadn't wanted to read it at the kitchen table.
I hadn't wanted Irini to see my face.
Anders sat on an upturned crate with his bandaged arm across his knee and said nothing.
The envelope was thin and soft, and the tape across the flap had gone brittle.
I opened it with my thumbnail.
Inside lay one sheet of lined paper, folded in thirds, written on both sides in blue ink.
*Daphne,*
*I'm writing this at my desk with the radio on, the night before. I'll give it to Mama's driver to post if anything goes wrong, because I don't trust the mail in this house.*
*Nothing is going to go wrong. I know every back road in the county. I'll have you at the Tampa station by nine, and I'll leave the car in the long-term lot, and take the late bus to Athens, and in a month you'll be a name on a postcard.*
*But in case.*
*I've watched you for three years. I've watched you hold a cold cloth to your own ribs in my mother's kitchen and say it was nothing. I've watched my brother be a coward in a good suit. I'm a coward too. I never did anything. I only held the cloth.*
*This is the first thing I've ever done, and I'm so frightened, and I'm so glad.*
*If you're reading this, then I didn't write to you from Athens, and something happened. Don't you dare blame yourself. I chose it. I'd choose it again.*
*I'll be the aunt your baby needs. I'll be the loudest, most embarrassing aunt there ever was. I'll send boxes of sponges and terrible Greek sweets, and I'll tell her that her mother was the bravest woman I ever met, because she stood up from that table.*
*I'm taking your slicker. You can have it back when we're old.*
*Write me at the house on Ermou Street. I'll be the one in the yellow coat.*
*K.*
I read it twice.
The second time, the words ran together.
Anders put his hand over mine on the cold boards and held it there.
"She wrote it the night before," I said.
"She knew it might happen.
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–6 of He Had Me Drowned, Then Wept at My Grave are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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