Chapter 13: The Letter

Calvin held the letter up in the floodlight and waited for her to beg for it.

Elise did not beg.

She crossed the concrete and took the paper out of his fingers.

"Hey," Calvin said.

"My name is on it," Elise said. "That makes it mine."

He grabbed for her sleeve.

She turned to the man with the phone beside the stairwell and held her wrist out where the lens could see it.

"Touch me again and your lawyer gets that, too."

Calvin's hand dropped.

His mouth went thin. For the first time that night he had nothing ready to say.

"Fine," he said. "Read it. Find out what kind of man you've been standing next to."

He looked at Nolan.

"Five years at my table, and you never once asked about her."

"I asked every time," Nolan said. "You always changed the subject."

Calvin turned to the man in the windbreaker.

"We're done."

They went through the stairwell door together, and the door swung shut.

The wind came through the frame and nobody spoke.

Elise looked down at the cream paper.

The creases were worn to cloth. Her name was across the top in blue ink, in small, square, careful letters.

She did not read it yet.

"Nolan," she said. "Look at me."

He lifted his head.

"I never saw this. Not once, not ever."

He stood very still.

"For ten years I thought you read it," he said. "I thought you read it and chose him."

"I didn't know it existed."

"I know that now." His voice cracked on the last word.

She unfolded the page under the floodlight.

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