They would’ve had to walk right up onto my porch, past the wind chimes, past the potted herbs, unwrap the little twine securing the slot, and slip it through.
I didn’t hear anything.
But then, the storm was loud. The world was loud. I was busy letting my mind run in circles over lightning and bees and honey and the echo of a man’s smile.
I bend down and pick it up, the paper crisp and cool beneath my fingers.
I just stand there, staring at my name written in ink that’s just slightly smudged, like someone hesitated before finishing the last letters.
My pulse jumps again, this time for a different reason. I flip it over.
The flap is tucked but not sealed. No wax. No taped edge.
I slip my finger under the fold and open it.
Inside is a single sheet of paper. My eyes skim the words once without really registering them.
Then again. Slowly, this time.
My stomach drops.
Abilene,
You don’t know me, but I knew your mother. I knew your grandmother too. There are things you were never told about what happened the night of the fire, and about what your grandmother kept afterward.
Things your father never knew, or pretended not to know. Things that could have changed everything for you.
Not everything in your family’s story is what it seems. Not everyone did what people said they did. Some people lied, and some kept quiet, and some ran away with pieces of the truth in their pockets.
She would want you to know this. Your mother died looking for something she believed would save you.
–A friend
By the time I reach the last line, my hands are trembling.
I read it again. Then again, as if repetition might make it make sense.
It doesn’t. Not at first.
But each sentence lands like a small stone in my chest.
I knew your mother.
My throat constricts.
Everyone in Colter Creek knows how my mother died. Barn fire. The stories of what caused it shift depending on who’s talking, but the ending is always the same.
Smoke. Flames.
Sirens that came too late.
Me, age twelve. Standing outside in my pajamas, wrapped in a blanket I don’t remember anyone putting around me.
My grandmother’s hand on my shoulder like a vise.
My father’s eyes fixed on nothing.
She would want you to know this.
