Chapter 3 - Fifty Letters
Marcus handed me one envelope. The postmark was from last month.
"These are from his daughter," he said.
Walter stared at a crack in the floor.
I looked at the stack in Marcus's hands. Had to be fifty of them. More.
"Why not open them?" I asked.
Walter's head came up. "Because I don't want to. That simple enough for you?"
"Then why keep them for seventeen years?" Marcus asked.
Walter had nothing.
Marcus leaned against the workbench. "His daughter was fifteen when her mom died."
"Nora blamed me," Walter said.
"She was a kid who'd just lost her mother," Marcus said.
"She told me I killed her."
Marcus exhaled. "She said you ignored the headaches. The warning signs."
Walter's face went hard. "My wife got headaches. Everybody gets headaches. You want to arrest me for that?"
"Nora was angry, Walter."
"She hated me."
"No," Marcus said. "She needed you, and you weren't there."
Walter shot up off the stool. "You don't know what it was like after."
"I came back."
"One time."
"I came back because your daughter called the station and asked for the paramedic who held her hand that night," Marcus said quietly.
That shut him up.
Marcus turned to me. "Walter came apart after the funeral. Quit showing up to work. Started drinking before noon. Nora ran that house by herself for a year. Cooked, did the laundry, signed her own school forms. Fifteen years old."
"I was grieving," Walter said.
"So was she," Marcus said. "She just didn't get to fall apart, because somebody had to buy groceries."
Walter kicked an envelope. It skated across the concrete. "Then she left."
"After you told her to get out," Marcus said.
May you like
Walter's jaw flexed. He didn't deny it.
Out past the garage door, I could still hear the party — the tinny music, a burst of shrieking laughter from the bounce house. For the first time, Walter seemed to actually hear it. He closed his eyes.
