“I never got them,” I said. “Not a single one. I thought you had forgotten me.”
“I know,” he said. He reached out, his thick fingers touching the edge of the postcard from 1972. “Because someone wrote back to me on your family stationery.”
The room grew very still, the only sound the quiet rustle of the oak leaves outside the window.
“What did the letter say, Daniel?” I asked.
“It said you were married to Richard,” he said, looking up at me with eyes that had seen too much winter. “It said you had moved to Atlanta and did not want to hear from a ghost.”
“Richard?” I whispered. “But I never married Richard. I stayed right here in Oakhaven.”
“The letter was written on the blue paper your mother always used,” Daniel said, his voice barely louder than the hum of the refrigerator. “The letter had your family crest at the top.”
I looked down at the empty envelope in my hand, the paper cool against my palms.
I held the empty envelope against my chest in the quiet room.
Daniel reached out and took the empty envelope from my fingers. He held it up to the light of the lamp, his thumb tracing the faint purple postmark from 1972.
