Chapter 31: Mail Day

On the first Monday of September, the bookshop had eleven customers, a ladder, and no room to turn around.

Hannah had put out a sign on the sidewalk that morning.

It said: MAIL DAY. COME WATCH CLARA OPEN HER LETTER. BRING NOTHING.

"This is humiliating," Clara said.

"You asked for people."

"I asked for two people."

"You got eleven. Beth drove in from Boston on four hours of sleep, so be nice."

Beth waved from the poetry shelf, with her glasses pushed up in her red hair and a paper cup in each hand.

"I brought you a latte," she called. "Don't thank me, just open it."

The mail truck came at ten past two.

It was a coincidence, and everybody in the shop agreed that it was a sign.

Hannah took a long white envelope from the carrier and held it up over her head.

"Postmarked Lisbon," she said. "Addressed in square handwriting. No tape."

"Hannah."

"I'm only describing the evidence."

She laid it on the counter, and the room went quiet in a pleased way.

Clara put her hand flat beside it.

Her heart was beating hard.

Under the nerves was something steadier that she had never felt in a room full of people before.

She was not hiding.

The bell over the door rang.

A young man in a Larkin College polo came in and stopped.

He looked at the crowd and plainly wished he had gone to a different shop.

Clara knew him.

He had worked the Union mailroom desk since sophomore year, and he was the only person in the world who had ever told Frank which box was Miles's.