More Than We Can Tell (Letters to the Lost #2)(3)

These are the first words my mother has spoken to me all day.

I slide the door open a few inches. “The dog needs a walk.”

“Take her, then.” As if I wasn’t about to do that. She takes a sip of wine. “You need to get out of your room once in a while. Spend some time in the real world.”

That’s a dig at my father. He spends his life attached to a computer, living in otherworldly realms. He’s a game designer.

Apple, tree. Yeah, yeah, I get it.

You can imagine how much this pleases my doctor mother, who I’m sure envisioned me running Johns Hopkins by the time I turn twenty-five. She’d have no problem if I were holed up in my room with a biology textbook.

Dad sighs and runs a hand down his face. “Leave her alone, Catharine.”

“I would appreciate it if you would back me up on this, Tom.” A lethal pause. “Unless you’re too busy with your game.”

I slide the door closed. I don’t need to hear the rest of this argument. I could practically write the dialogue.

No one in this house would ever say “mouth hole,” but the vitriol is the same.

With a sigh, I grab the dog’s leash and turn for the front hall.





TWO

Rev

Happy birthday, Son.

I hope you’ll make me proud.

[email protected]

The note was in the mailbox. The envelope is addressed to me.

Not to me now. He’d never call me Rev Fletcher. He might not even know that’s my name.

It’s addressed to who I was ten years ago. There’s no return address, but the postmark reads Annapolis.

I can’t breathe. I feel exposed, like a sniper rifle is trained on me. I’m waiting for a bullet to hit me in the back of the head.

Ridiculous. I’m standing on the sidewalk in the middle of suburbia. It’s March. A chill hangs in the air, the sun setting in the distance. Two elementary-school-age girls are riding bikes in the street, singing a song and laughing.

My father doesn’t need a bullet. This letter is enough.

He didn’t need a bullet ten years ago, either.

Sometimes I wish he’d had a gun. A bullet would have been quick.

He knows my address. Is he here? Could he be here? The streetlights blink to life, and I sweep my eyes over the street again.

No one is here. Just me and those girls, who are riding lazy figure eights now.

When I was first taken away from my father, I couldn’t sleep for months. I would lie in bed and wait for him to snatch me out of the darkness. For him to shake me or hit me or burn me and blame me. When I could sleep, I’d dream of it happening.

I feel like I’m having a nightmare right now. Or a panic attack. The rest of the mail is a crumpled mess in my hands.

I need this letter gone.

Before I know it, I’m in the backyard. Flame eats up a small pile of sticks and leaves in one of Mom’s Pyrex bowls. Smoke curls into the air, carrying a rich, sweet smell that reminds me of fall. I hold the envelope over the bowl, and the tongue of fire stretches for it.

The paper feels like it’s been folded and unfolded a hundred times, in thirds and then in half. The creases are so worn the paper might fall apart if I’m not careful. Like he wrote it ages ago, but he waited until now to mail it.

Happy birthday, Son.

I turned eighteen three weeks ago.

There’s a familiar scent to the paper, some whiff of cologne or aftershave that pokes at old memories and buries a knife of tension right between my shoulder blades.

I hope you’ll make me proud.

The words are familiar, too, like ten years doesn’t separate me from the last time I heard him speak them out loud.

I want to thrust my entire hand into this bowl of fire.

Then I think of what my father used to do to me, and I realize thrusting my hand into a bowl of fire probably would make him proud.

My brain keeps flashing the e-mail address, like a malfunctioning neon sign.

[email protected]

Robert.

Ellis.

Robert Ellis.

The flame grabs hold. The paper begins to vanish and flake away.

A choked sound escapes my throat.

The paper is on the ground before I realize I’ve thrown it, and my foot stomps out the flame. Only the corner burned. The rest is intact.

I shove back the hood of my sweatshirt and run my hands through my hair. The strands catch and tangle on my shaking fingers. My chest aches. I’m breathing like I’ve run a mile.

I hope you’ll make me proud.

I hate that there’s a part of me that wants to. Needs to. I haven’t seen him in ten years, and one little note has me craving his approval.

“Rev?”

My heart nearly explodes. Luckily, I have razor-keen reflexes. I upend the bowl with one foot, stepping square over the letter with the other.

“What?”

The word comes out more of a warning than a question. I sound possessed.

Geoff Fletcher, my dad—not my father—stands at the back door, peering out at me. “What are you doing?”

“School project.” I’m lying, obviously. I’ve been forced into a lie by one little letter.

He surveys me with obvious concern and steps out onto the porch. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah. Fine.”

I don’t sound fine, and he’s not an idiot. He comes to the edge of the porch and looks down at me. He’s wearing a salmon-pink polo shirt and crisply pressed khakis—his teaching clothes. He turned fifty last year, but you wouldn’t know it to look at him. He stays in shape, and he’s well over six feet. When I was seven, when a social worker first brought me here, I found him terrifying.