Ms. Leech said, “This is what they wanted, the day they hurt me. I didn’t give it to them, though. It wasn’t theirs to have.”
She set the envelope down in front of me, and I reached for the flap.
Ms. Leech placed her hand over mine. “Not here,” she said. “I don’t want to see what is inside. Not ever again. Knowing leads to nothing but bad things.”
The envelope was addressed to my father.
I kicked the door of my apartment shut with the heel of my foot and crossed over to the living room, with Gerdy at my side. I cleared off a spot on the coffee table and set the envelope down, staring at it.
“Aren’t you going to open it?” Gerdy asked.
I drew in a breath, tried to slow my pounding heart, the anxiety creeping over my skin.
The hospital bed had been removed yesterday.
The room seemed empty without it.
Gerdy sat on the edge of the coffee table and looked me in the eye. “Do you want me to open it?”
I shook my head, picked up the envelope, and peeled back the flap. The glue had dried ages ago, now stiff and brittle. The single page crinkled as I unfolded the old paper, this letter my father had once held.
Gerdy came around behind me and read over my shoulder.
Eddie,
They know about the baby. I’m not sure how they know, but they do. Emma is frantic. Not sleeping. Neither of us, really. Christ, man, how could they find out? We were so careful. I thought Emma was just being paranoid when she said she saw one of them last week, and then I started seeing them, too. White coats everywhere. At first, I told myself it was nothing. Hell, I saw a little girl, couldn’t have been more than seven, wearing a white ski parka, and before I knew it, my hand was on my gun. I’m not that guy, Eddie! We were staying at a little place in Vermont at that point, just outside Stowe. Figured best to blend with other families, right? Then I saw another. A man this time. Probably mid-thirties. I saw him across the street from the gas station, watching me but not watching me, you know? Then I saw the same guy again the next day driving slow down our street. The day after, too. We left that night. Packed up our stuff and just left. Went to Florida after that. No coats in Florida, right? Ha! I thought I had it all figured out. That was worse, though, because I think they were still watching us, but they were harder to pick out of the crowds. Only one week in the Sunshine State, then back north for us. We saw them in Georgia, the Carolinas, too. I thought we lost them in Virginia. I was careful, kept getting off the highway, taking back roads for a while, then random highways, even started heading out west for a bit. I veered off into Tennessee, and somehow they found us in a small town called Kingsford off 81. That time, they didn’t even try to hide. I pulled back the curtain on our hotel room, and three of them were staring back at me from the parking lot.
How the fuck do they know about the baby?
From the minute Emma started to show, she didn’t set foot outside unless her belly was completely covered. Those last few months, she didn’t go out at all. How the fuck…
I think I killed two of them, maybe the third, too, I’m not sure. It all happened so fast. We got away and headed west. Stole a new car in Kentucky. Got another car in Illinois. Set the first one on fire at the back of a junk yard. Lost them, I thought. Almost a year in California without a sign of them. Then yesterday—
The baby doesn’t go outside.
We can’t let her.
You understand why, right?
Not much of a baby now. Walking! Crazy, right? You get it. You’ve got a boy.
She wants to go out, but we can’t let her. Our neighbors don’t know we even have a kid. Figured it’s safer that way. Can’t take chances.
Yesterday a truck parked in the driveway of the vacant house across the street. A white truck. Black tinted windows. Thought I was being paranoid again. People drive white trucks, right?
Vacant house no more.
Four of them.
Living right across the street.
I caught them taking shifts at an upstairs window, watching us.
Emma and I have been taking shifts, too, watching them watch us. We’re working on a plan to get out, to get away.
We’re coming back.
I don’t know what else to do.
