I could be there in twenty minutes.
Hmm.
I shake my head and close the laptop with a snap. I grab my water and take a long drink. I wish I had anotherOld Fashioned, but the water will have to do.
The pile of mail I retrieved from the front door is now stacked neatly in the middle of the table. I push my laptop to the side and start sorting through the letters. The first two are bills—I find it baffling that they still come, even though I pay all my bills online. The next one is soliciting a political donation. Yeah right. Then a catalog from a bakery, offering a variety of baked goods.
And the last letter is from my father.
I suck in a breath as I stare at the smooth black lettering on the back of the envelope. He always had very nice handwriting. Tight and compact, every letter the exact same height like he measured it with a ruler, the pen marks digging into the paper so that an indentation would always be left behind on the sheet below. I wonder if the postman noticed the name on the return address. If he did, he probably thought it was a joke. At least the letter is made out to Nora Davis. I haven’t been Nora Nierling in nearly twenty-six years.
He’s been writing me these letters every week since the day of his arrest. I didn’t know about them for a long time. My grandmother used to throw them out. But then after I left for college, the letters came directly to me.
What does he have to say to me? What could he possibly have to say?
I wonder if he thinks about me. Worries about me. My mother used to worry about me when I was a kid, but she’s long gone. Nobody thinks about me or worries about me anymore. Not really. Philip might worry a little bit, because if something happened to me, who would cover his patientswhen he went on vacation? But he doesn’t worry in any sort of real way.
I stare at that letter for a very long time. Like I do every week.
And like I do every week, I rip it in half, and rip it in half again, and toss the pieces in the garbage can.
Happy anniversary, Dad.
Chapter 3
26 Years Earlier
The cake smells really good coming out of the oven. It’s vanilla—my favorite. And my mom made it from scratch, using flour, sugar, baking powder, vanilla, and eggs. She showed me how to mix the wet ingredients and the dry ingredients separately, and then we combined them. I helped her, because she asked me to, but I don’t like baking with my mom. I would’ve been okay using the vanilla cake from the box. Or just something she bought from the grocery store bakery aisle.
Mom lowers the cake tin down onto the kitchen counter and pulls off her pink oven mitts. There are two cake tins, because she’s going to make a layer cake. That’s what I asked for. A vanilla cake with layers and cream cheese frosting.
“Can we put the frosting on now?” I ask.
Mom places one hand on each hip. She is such amom. Like if you were reading a book about a mom, she’dprobably be like my mom. Every night, she cooks dinner for us, makes sure I do all my homework, and cleans the house herself, top to bottom. (I’mtechnicallyresponsible for my own bedroom, but if I get lazy and don’t do it, she mostly just does it for me.) When our neighbors are sick, she goes to check on them and brings a tub of chicken noodle soup or maybe a casserole.
“Nora,” she says. “You know we have to let the cake cool before we put the frosting on it. Otherwise, it will just melt.”
“Well,” I say thoughtfully, “then we can put on asecondlayer.”
Mom smiles at that. She smiles a lot. When she smiles, she has dimples and it makes her double chin look bigger. When she and my dad got married, she was skinny—almost bony—but she’s not now. I like her better this way. Who wants to hug a bunch of bones? But my dad keeps telling her she should try to lose some weight. He says it a lot.
“You have to be patient,” she says.
Usually, I’m pretty patient. Even when the other kids are fooling around in class, I always sit quietly and do what the teacher says. But today is my birthday, and the cake smells really good. So I rip the lid off the plastic tub of cream cheese frosting and rake one finger through the creamy white goodness. Mom gives me a look, but she doesn’t stop me. After all, we’re the only ones who are going to be eating the frosting.
Mmm. Cream cheese frosting.
“Are you sure you don’t want to invite any of your friends over tonight?” Mom asks me. “It’s not too late.”
“No, that’s okay.”
“But it’s yourbirthday, honey.”
She doesn’t have to remind me that it’s my birthday. Iknowit’s my birthday. Today, I am eleven years old. Next year I’ll be in middle school. I can’t wait.
Mom’s eyebrows knit together. “You have friends, don’t you, Nora?”
“Yes.”
