Chapter 12: The Cedar Chest

The brass lock on my mother's cedar chest gave way on the fourth hit with the claw hammer.

I knelt on the rug in her bedroom and lifted the lid.

The smell came up first, cedar and lavender and the lotion she used on her hands.

On top lay a folded dish towel.

I unwrapped it and found her hair shears, the silver ones with black handles that she had used on me every month.

A strip of masking tape ran along the blade.

In her handwriting it said: Hattie's bangs.

I set them on the rug with both hands.

Under the towel was a rubber-banded stack of envelopes.

They were thin, cheap, and gray at the corners.

Every one was addressed to Miss Hattie Sorrell, 41 Locust Street, in square capital letters that I had known since third grade.

I counted them without meaning to.

Thirty-one.

The first one was postmarked Toledo, two years ago in November.

I turned it over.

The flap had never been opened.

Neither had the second, or the third.

My mother had held them for two years and had never broken a seal.

On top of the stack was a sheet of her blue stationery folded in thirds.

I sat back against the bed and opened it.

Hattie,

If you are reading this, I couldn't say it to your face, and I'm sorry for that too.

Rafe's mother came to me the week Rafe left.

The men who sent him to Toledo had been watching the post office.

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