“Eli.”
“Probably.”
Harriet continued.
“There is something else.”
“What?”
“A wooden box.”
Anna felt suddenly cold.
“Blue symbol?”
Harriet nodded.
“Painted on the lid.”
Anna tried to stand again.
This time Tess did not stop her immediately.
Harriet did.
“You cannot enter.”
“Then bring it out.”
“We are.”
Twenty minutes later, an investigator carried the box into daylight.
It was not old.
Perhaps five or ten years.
The wood was clean beneath layers of dust.
Anna recognized her mother’s handwriting on the lid.
FOR ANNA.
She stopped breathing.
Noah stepped back.
“This is yours.”
The investigator photographed everything before opening it.
Inside were three envelopes.
A cassette tape.
A small stuffed rabbit.
And a child’s blue hair ribbon.
Anna made a sound somewhere between a laugh and a sob.
“My rabbit.”
Lily looked at her.
“You had a bunny?”
Anna touched one worn ear.
“His name was George.”
“That’s a funny name.”
“I was six.”
“I would have named him Moonbeam.”
“That’s because you have imagination.”
Colter watched Anna hold the toy.
This was not evidence to her.
It was childhood returning through a wooden box.
For twenty-seven years, Anna had remembered the morning after her father disappeared.
Her mother had said Thomas was gone.
Adults whispered in kitchens.
Neighbors brought casseroles.
Men searched fields and mines.
Anna had carried George the rabbit until his seams tore.
Then one day the toy vanished.
She had assumed her mother threw it away.
Now here it was.
Stored underground beside her father’s last known place.
The first envelope bore Anna’s name.
The second said NOAH.
The third said FOR BOTH OF YOU.
Anna looked at Noah.
“My mother wrote to you?”
“Apparently.”
The investigator allowed them to read copies after documenting the originals.
Noah opened his first.
His eyes moved quickly.
Then slowed.
He sat down.
“What?”
Anna asked.
Noah handed her the letter.
Ruth had written only half a page.
Noah,
Your father was not a coward.
I spent years believing Caleb stole Thomas from us by asking him to return to Cedar Hollow.
I was wrong.
Thomas chose to go because Eli was young, frightened, and alone.
Caleb spent the rest of his life apologizing to me without ever using the words.
I spent the rest of mine refusing to forgive him because anger was easier than grief.
Do not inherit what belonged to us.
Anna read the last sentence again.
Do not inherit what belonged to us.
Noah wiped his eyes.
“She knew.”
“She knew Dad blamed himself.”
“She knew everything.”
Anna looked toward her own envelope.
Her hands shook as she opened it.
My Anna,
If you are reading this, then my courage arrived too late.
Anna stopped.
Lily placed her small hand over her mother’s.
Anna continued.
I told you your father vanished from Black Ridge because I believed a simple grief would hurt you less than a complicated truth.
There is no such thing as simple grief.
I learned that too late.
Your father came home before dawn.
He was exhausted, muddy, and injured, but he was alive.
He held you while you slept on the sofa.
You woke once and asked why he smelled like rain.
He laughed.
That was the last time I heard him laugh.
Anna stopped reading.
A memory opened.
Not completely.
Not clearly.
A voice.
Warm hands.
The rough fabric of her father’s work jacket beneath her cheek.
And rain.
She began to cry.
Lily wrapped both arms around her.
Anna continued through tears.
Thomas told me Caleb’s brother might still be underground.
I begged him not to return.
He told me that if you were lost somewhere in the dark, he would hope another father would come looking for you.
I hated him for saying it because I knew then that nothing I could say would stop him.
At sunrise he left.
For years I told myself Caleb had taken him from me.
The truth is harder.
Thomas made a choice I could understand and still wish he had never made.
Both things can be true.
I kept George because you were holding him that morning.
Later, when I learned where Thomas had gone, I brought the rabbit here.
It was foolish.
It was sentimental.
It was all I knew to do.
Anna lowered the letter.