“It is.”
Elena opened the folder and removed several sheets of paper.
The first was the agreement.
She slid it across the table.
Daniel read it slowly.
The document stated that Elena had voluntarily agreed not to contact Daniel or Silas without written permission. At the bottom was Daniel’s name in dark ink.
The signature looked convincing.
But Daniel pointed to the line beneath it.
“My middle initial is M.”
The document read Daniel J. Granger.
Elena leaned closer.
“I never noticed.”
“My father’s middle name was James.”
Silas looked between them.
“So Grandpa wrote Dad’s name?”
“We don’t know,” Daniel said.
Elena removed another page.
“This was attached.”
It was a short handwritten note.
Daniel has chosen stability. Please respect his decision.
The handwriting was blocky and careful.
Evelyn, waiting beyond the glass wall, saw the page through the doorway.
She stood.
“May I come in?”
Silas nodded.
She entered and stared at the note.
“That was Walter’s writing.”
Daniel leaned back.
“You’re certain?”
“Yes.”
Her hand moved toward the paper, then stopped before touching it.
“He wrote labels like that. Each letter separate from the next.”
Elena looked at her.
“Did you know?”
“No.”
“Did you see me that day?”
Evelyn’s face became pale.
“I remember rain.”
“It wasn’t raining.”
The answer came gently, but Evelyn flinched.
“I remember the porch being wet.”
“Walter washed it every morning,” Daniel said.
Evelyn pressed her fingers to her temple.
“I heard voices. I came into the hallway. Walter told me you had changed your mind.”
“I hadn’t.”
“He said you were leaving for good.”
Elena opened her mouth, then closed it.
Evelyn’s eyes filled.
“I thought I watched you walk away.”
“You may have,” Elena said. “I left after he gave me the paper.”
“I should have stopped you.”
“You did not know what he had told me.”
“I should have asked.”
Daniel looked at his mother.
“We all should have asked.”
The sentence held no sharpness.
Only sorrow.
Elena removed a stack of envelopes from the folder.
“These are the letters that came back.”
Each envelope had been marked with the same message.
No longer at this address.
Daniel picked up the oldest one.
The return mark was dated two weeks after October 14.
“I lived in the same house for another five years.”
Elena nodded.
“I thought you were returning them.”
“I never saw them.”
One envelope had been opened.
Daniel removed the letter and recognized Elena’s handwriting.
At the bottom, below her signature, someone had added a sentence in blue ink.
Do not write again.
Daniel stared at it.
“That isn’t my handwriting.”
“No,” Evelyn said.
Everyone looked at her.
Her hands trembled.
“I know that ink.”
She turned toward Silas.
“In the hidden room, beneath the bed, there is a metal box. Walter kept his fountain pens in it.”
Daniel stood.
“What else is in the box?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why didn’t you mention it yesterday?”
“I forgot it was there.”
The pain in her voice stopped him from asking anything more.
Elena gathered the returned letters.
“We don’t have to solve every part today.”
Daniel looked at her across the table.
“No. But we have to stop pretending the unanswered parts don’t matter.”
Something passed between them.
Not the affection they once had.
Not yet.
It was the recognition that both had spent years carrying a version of the same loss.
Silas closed his book.
“What happens now?”
Daniel sat beside him again.
“Your mother and I speak with the counselor.”
“And me?”
“You decide what questions you want answered.”
“Can I see her again?”
Daniel looked at Elena.
“Yes,” he said. “If that is what you want.”
Silas considered the woman across from him.
“Maybe at the library.”
