“From a distance.”
My stomach tightened.her?”
“Not like that,” Daniel said quickly. “I never followed her. I never interfered with her life.”
He pointed toward the photograph.
“I didn’t take that picture.”
“Then who did?”
Daniel’s expression changed.
“I don’t know.”
That answer frightened me more than anything else.
He opened the box.
Inside was a stack of envelopes.
All of them were yellow with age.
Some were tied together with a faded piece of string.
On the top envelope, written in handwriting I knew better than my own, were five words:
For Clara, when she turns eighteen.
Clara reached for it.
Then stopped.
“Mom?”
I nodded.
She opened the envelope.
Inside was a single sheet of paper.
She began reading aloud.
“Dear Clara,
If you’re reading this, then you’re eighteen.
That means you finally caught up to me.
I wish I could have been there to annoy you about it.”
