Somewhere behind them came a shriek.
Lucy.
Then Annie yelled, “I told you!”
Samuel shouted, “Move! I can’t see!”
Four children exploded from behind the barn.
Clara pulled away laughing.
“You were spying?”
“We were supervising,” Annie said.
Ethan stared at her.
“That sounded disturbingly like Clara.”
Annie grinned.
For once, she looked exactly nine.
They married six weeks later.
Nothing elaborate.
Wildflowers.
Fresh bread.
Half the town packed inside the little church.
Even Mrs. Bellamy cried.
Afterward, while the children chased one another beside the creek, the newspaper editor approached Clara.
“Mrs. Cole?”
The name still startled her.
“Yes?”
“Found something you may want.”
He handed her an envelope.
Old.
Yellowed.
Clara frowned.
“What is it?”
“Something from my predecessor’s records. We were cleaning the press office after the Mercer trial. Your name was written on the outside.”
Clara turned it over.
CLARA HAYES.
Her blood went cold.
The handwriting was familiar.
She had seen it before.
Ethan joined her.
“What is it?”
Clara opened the envelope.
Inside was a letter.
She began reading.
Then her knees nearly gave way.
Ethan caught her.
“Clara?”
She could not answer.
She handed him the paper.
He read aloud.
Dear Miss Hayes,
You do not know me, though I once knew someone who spoke of you often.
Clara pressed her fingers to her lips.
Ethan continued.
My name is Margaret Cole.
The world seemed to stop.
The letter had been written eleven months before Margaret’s death.
Years ago, while working briefly as a nurse in Kansas City, I cared for a dying woman named Eleanor Hayes.
Clara gasped.
“My mother.”
Ethan looked at her.
She nodded numbly.
She told me about her daughter Clara, who had given up much of her youth caring for others. She worried you would spend your entire life believing you were valuable only when someone needed work done.
Tears blurred the words.
Your mother made me promise that if I ever found you, I would tell you something.
Clara took the letter.
She had to read the next line herself.
You were loved long before anyone had the wisdom to choose you.
Clara wept.
For her mother.
For Margaret.
For the strange path joining two women across years and distance.
But the letter continued.
I tried twice to locate you without success. If this reaches you someday, perhaps that will be enough.
Below it was a postscript written in different ink.
Later.
Much later.
Possibly only days before Margaret died.
I found her.
Clara’s breath caught.
Ethan leaned closer.
The final lines read:
The newspaper office in Millstone confirmed Clara Hayes still lives there.
Things here have become dangerous.
Silas knows I have proof.
If something happens to me, Ethan will never ask for help. He is too proud, and grief will make him worse.
The children will need someone.
Perhaps this is selfish.
Perhaps it is providence.
I have enclosed money and instructions for an advertisement to be placed in the Millstone paper if I fail to cancel it before November.
