His Letters Reached Me Fourteen Years Late, and the First Said Goodbye novel · Chapter 22 of 24

Chapter 22: Caregiver of the Year

I stood up with the shoebox in my arms.

My chair scraped on the linoleum, and it was the only sound in the hall.

"Aunt Verna," I said, "I'd like to correct the record."

A hundred and forty heads turned.

Verna's smile did not move.

"Honey, sit down," she said into the microphone, softly. "We'll talk after the pie."

"I'd rather do it before."

I walked up the center aisle in my mother's blue dress with the box held in front of me.

Nobody stopped me.

Reva sat in the aisle seat of the third row, glaring, as promised.

She did not say a word, and she did not take her eyes off Verna.

I climbed the two steps to the platform and set the shoebox on the lectern beside the chrysanthemums.

I took off the lid and lifted out the envelopes one at a time and stood them on end in a row along the wood.

There were ten of them.

"These are letters," I said, "from Alister McCreary to me. One for every third of October that he wrote."

A murmur went across the tables.

"He put them in my mother's mailbox. My aunt took them out. The woman who bought her house found them in a closet and handed them to me three weeks ago."

"That's a lie," Verna said.

She said it quietly, and her hands tightened on the plaque.

"Let's see," I said.

I took the nearest envelope and turned it over, and opened the flap, and held it up to the light.

← Chapter 21 · All chapters · Chapter 23 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend