“Then he turned off the tap. And we both thought the other had gone silent.”
I held fifty-year-old letters I’d written by candlelight.
Letters full of a garden that was long gone.
A dog long bur.ied.
A future that never came because my own brother sold it.
“Why?” I said. “For land? For money? He was my brother.”
Walt opened his mouth.
That’s when the window broke.
Not the door.
The window.
Glass sprayed across the kitchen floor.
A hand reached through and found the latch.
Dale.
He’d gone around back.
The back door swung open and he walked into my house like he owned it.
Maybe, on paper, he did.
Dale was fifty now.
Big through the shoulders.
Wearing a good coat and a bad look.
He stopped when he saw Walt.
Really saw him.
The color left his face.
“So it’s true,” Dale said.
“You’re him. You’re actually him.”
“I’m him,” Walt said.
Dale pulled out his phone.
Hit a number.
Put it to his ear without taking his eyes off us.
“Dad,” he said. “He’s here. In her house. And she’s talking to him.”
A pause.
“Yeah. He’s old. But it’s him.”
Another pause.
Dale’s jaw tightened.
“Okay. Okay. I’ll handle it.”
He hung up.
He slid the phone away.
“Aunt Nora,” he said, gentle now, which was worse.
“Come sit down. This man is confused. He’s been feeding you a story.”
“He’s not confused,” I said.
“He’s been lying to you, Aunt Nora. There are people who prey on widows.”
“I’m not a widow, Dale.”
The word hung there.
Dale’s eyes flicked to the shoebox in my hands.
He knew what it was.
I saw it.
He knew.
“Give me the box,” he said.
“No.”
“Aunt Nora. Give me the box and I’ll take this man somewhere safe and we’ll sort it out in the morning.”
“Somewhere safe,” Walt said quietly. “Like your father kept me safe.”
Dale took a step.
Walt put himself between Dale and me.
An old man with a limp, squaring up against his own nephew-in-law.
“You touch her,” Walt said, “and I promise you the whole town hears every word of this by sunup.”
