“No.”
Nora turned toward Thomas.
The boy stood rigid beside the staircase.
Harlan’s voice was low.
“Tell her.”
Thomas said nothing.
“Thomas.”
“I sent it.”
Nora felt the night open beneath her.
“You?”
Thomas swallowed.
“I wrote the notice.”
“A seventeen-year-old boy advertised his father for marriage?”
“I was sixteen then.”
“That does not improve matters.”
“I didn’t know what else to do.”
Harlan slammed his palm onto the table.
“You had no right.”
Thomas rounded on him.
“And you were doing so well?”
Rue cried harder.
Cade appeared at the top of the staircase. Behind him were Eli, Porter, and Reeve.
Every boy was awake now.
Every secret in the house seemed to have climbed out of bed with them.
Thomas’s voice broke.
“You stopped coming inside except to sleep. Cade was stealing flour from the bunkhouse. Eli got pneumonia because nobody noticed his boots were split. Rue burned his arm trying to cook!”
“I noticed.”
“When?”
Thomas’s eyes shone.
“When, Pa?”
Harlan looked as if someone had struck him.
Thomas turned toward Nora.
“I found Mother’s letters after she died.”
He pointed to the cedar box.
“Those.”
Nora stared at them.
“They were addressed to me?”
Thomas nodded.
“But never sent.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
Nora reached into the box.
The first envelope read:
Miss Nora Callaway
Willow Ridge, Missouri
The address was twelve years old.
Her hands shook.
She opened it.
The handwriting inside was elegant but hurried.
My dearest Nora,
Nora stopped.
She could hear her own heartbeat.
She continued.
If this letter reaches you, then perhaps I have finally become brave enough to tell you the truth. I did not die. I ran.
Nora covered her mouth.
Across the table, Harlan looked away.
The letter continued.
Silas told you I was dead because I discovered what he had done with Father’s estate. When I threatened him, he locked me upstairs and said he would have me committed. I escaped with help from a stableman and went west under another name.
I wanted to return for you.
God forgive me, Nora, I wanted to every day.
But Silas wrote that if I came near you, he would make certain you suffered for it.
So I remained dead.
I told myself that keeping away was protection.
Perhaps it was only cowardice.
Nora could not finish.
She lowered the paper.
“My uncle told me you died.”
Thomas whispered, “She talked about you.”
Nora looked at him.
“Your mother?”
He nodded.
“All the time near the end.”
Harlan gripped the back of a chair.
“She became ill after Rue was born. Her lungs never recovered properly. Last winter she got fever. We tried everything.”
Nora looked down at the silver thimble.
She remembered it.
Eleanor had taught her to sew with that thimble.
Nora had been six.
