Chapter 9 - The Handwriting He Could Not Deny
The curtain cut into my palms where I gripped it. Below me, Daniel had the envelope out of his pocket again. I hadn't seen him take it out. One second his hand was empty at his side, the next the white rectangle was between his fingers, and he was turning it over like it might change if he looked at it from another angle.
My legs had gone numb against the sill. I tried to shift my weight without letting go and felt the fabric slide a half inch through my sweat. Rosa gasped under me and tightened her hold on the lower drape to take up the slack.
"Don't move, honey," she whispered. "I've got it."
I could see the front of the envelope from where I stood. My father-in-law's writing, slanted and heavy. Daniel. Printed in black ink, the letters pressed hard enough to dent the paper. In the lower left corner there was a small embossed seal I recognized from the papers we'd signed when we bought the house. A law office stamp in blue.
Daniel stared at it. His thumb rubbed over the D of his own name.
"That's Dad's handwriting," he said quietly.
He wasn't talking to any of us. He was just saying what his eyes told him. His voice sounded strange, flattened out.
His mother stepped closer. Her shoes made no sound on the rug. "It's a draft," she said. "Your father had Mr. Keller draw up all kinds of drafts last spring when he wasn't well."
Daniel looked up at her. "This has Keller's stamp on it."
"A draft can have a stamp. That doesn't make it filed." She held out her hand, palm up, steady. "Give it to me, Daniel. I'll show you the final one downstairs in the study. The real one."
I watched his face. The hesitation wasn't like before with the scissors. This was different, slower. He turned the envelope over again. On the back, the flap was sealed with a strip of clear tape gone yellow at the edges, and across it two initials in the same black ink. R.H. Richard Hale. His father.
"It's sealed," Daniel said.
"Because he never sent it," his mother said quickly. "He changed his mind. You know how he got at the end, confused. He'd ask Rosa for the same file three times."
Rosa made a sound low in her throat but didn't look up. Her whole body was braced, knees on the floor, arms locked around the curtain. Sweat darkened the collar of her uniform.
"Don't," I said. My voice cracked. I had to swallow before I could get the rest out.
Daniel's eyes lifted to me. The scissors were gone — I realized then he'd set them on the side table by the lamp, out of his hand for the first time since I'd climbed up here. I hadn't even seen him do it.
"Elise?" he said.
I hated how high my voice sounded, how thin. I tried to keep it to one sentence at a time so I wouldn't cry. "Please don't open it yet. Please. Get me down first, then open it."
His mother turned sharply. "No. Open it now and end this. It's nothing, and she is using it to—"
"Margaret." Rosa said her name without looking up. Just that. It stopped her mid-sentence.
Daniel looked from his mother to Rosa to me. The envelope shook a little in his hand. He slipped his finger under the corner of the flap, then stopped. I could see him wanting to tear it, to know right then.
"Daniel," I said. "I'm slipping. I can't hold on while you read. Please. Get me down first."
That was true. My fingers were cramping. The baby pressed low and hard against my ribs and made it hard to breathe all the way in. I was afraid if he opened it and it was bad, or if his mother started yelling, I'd lose my grip.
He stared at the envelope for three long breaths. Then he nodded once, more to himself than to me, and slid it back into his pants pocket. He patted the pocket flat with his palm.
"She's right," he said to his mother. "Not with her up there. After she's down."
His mother's hand was still out in the air. She lowered it slowly to her side. Her mouth tightened until the lipstick bled into the lines around it.
"You're making a mistake," she said.
May you like
Daniel didn't answer her. He looked past her at Rosa, then up at me. "Okay," he said. "We're going to do this careful."
He left the envelope in his pocket. He didn't touch it again.
