The Letters That Came Back

"I'll come," Brielle told Celia. "Tell me where."

They met Ana Morales two days later in a community center outside Milwaukee. Brielle had spent the journey reading the same page without remembering a word.

Matteo had offered to drive her.

She had said yes before deciding whether she should.

Now he waited by the window while Ana brought a box to the table. Celia sat beside Brielle with a notebook closed in front of her.

"Margaret used to keep everything," Ana said. "Christmas cards. Photographs. Letters she thought someone might come back for. Her daughter gave me these when she died."

She lifted out a paper envelope.

Inside were three returned letters.

Brielle knew the handwriting before she saw her own name.

The first was addressed to Ashland Avenue. The second to the apartment where Samuel had moved them afterward. Both were marked as undeliverable.

"But we lived there," Brielle said.

Ana watched her carefully.

"Mara thought so too. Margaret helped her try again."

The third envelope was addressed to Brielle at her high school, care of the guidance office. A note attached to it said a parent had collected the student's personal correspondence after requesting that all contact go through him.

Brielle sat back.

She could see her father in his brown jacket, accepting the envelope, thanking someone for their concern.

At home, he had told her Mara hadn't even asked about her.

"She wanted to come back," Ana said. "Margaret talked her out of going alone. Your father had already arrived at one community center looking for her. There were other men with him."

"She was nineteen," Brielle whispered. "Everyone kept saying she was old enough to do what she wanted."

"Being nineteen didn't give her money or somewhere safe to bring you."

Brielle opened the first letter.

Bree, I know you're angry. You can be angry as long as you want. Please just write and tell me you're eating something besides cereal.

The room blurred.

She had lived on cereal that winter. She'd taken the box into her bedroom because she couldn't bear the empty chair at the kitchen table.

"Did she become a nurse?" Brielle asked, remembering the old promise.

Ana smiled.

"She went back to school. Margaret helped her choose a new surname after she left. She took Ellis. I knew her as Mara Ellis."

"Do you know where she is now?"

"We lost regular contact when I moved. I have a number, but it's old. I've left a message. I won't give you someone else's private address without checking it's her."

Brielle nodded, although waiting felt almost physically impossible.

Matteo moved a chair closer and sat down.

He did not ask what was in the letter. He passed her a tissue, then another when she tried unsuccessfully to laugh.

"Cereal," she said.

"What?"

"She knew what I'd be eating."

He glanced at the page, and his expression softened.

Ana left them alone for a few minutes. Celia went to take a call in the hall.

Brielle held the letters carefully between her palms.

"I used my mother's maiden name when I left home," she said. "Bell. I was eighteen, and I wanted Dad to have no idea where I'd gone. I moved to Ohio with a friend."

"Did Mara know that name?"

"Of course. But she wouldn't have known the town. I moved three times. I changed back after Mom died. I thought if Mara ever looked, Dawson was the name she'd remember."

The thought of those missed years made her feel sick.

"I searched for Dawson," she continued. "I didn't know to look for Ellis. I posted her picture. I called hospitals. I thought if she was alive and wanted me, she'd find me."

Matteo leaned forward, his elbows on his knees.

"You both had someone working to keep you apart."

"And after he died?"

He did not manufacture an answer.

"You'll have to ask her."

She looked at him. He was tired. There were calls he kept rejecting, a business he had opened to scrutiny, a daughter he had left with Lucia so he could sit beside her in a borrowed room.

"Do you wish I hadn't picked up that chair?"

He turned fully toward her.

"Don't ask me that."

"Your mother would have been safe when you arrived. Maybe—"

"You don't know that. I don't know that."

His hand closed over the edge of his chair.

"I wish no one had made you do it. That's what I wish."

Brielle put the letters on the table.

She reached for him with her good hand.

He looked at their fingers, then at her face.

"Brielle."

"You keep saying my name like you're warning yourself."

He gave a small, humorless laugh.

"I'm trying to remember you're having the worst week of your life."

"Parts of it haven't been."

His gaze dropped to her mouth.

She leaned closer. He met her halfway, one hand settling lightly at her waist.

The first kiss was careful enough to hurt. The second came because she caught his shirt when he started to pull away.

He made a quiet sound against her mouth. His hand tightened at her waist, warm and solid through the borrowed sweater, and she felt how much care his restraint was costing him.

When they parted, she kept her forehead against his.

"I don't know how to do any of this," she said.

"We can be bad at it slowly."

She laughed then, properly this time.

A knock sounded at the door.

They moved apart before Ana entered, but Matteo kept hold of Brielle's hand.

Ana's eyes were wet.

"She called back."

Brielle stopped breathing.

"It's Mara. I told her your name, your age, the photograph. She asked whether you still hated tomatoes."

Brielle's mouth trembled.

"Only the raw ones."

"That's what she said."

Ana held out her phone.

On the screen was a message, newly arrived.

Tell her I can meet tomorrow. Please tell her to come.