“I’m sure,” I say. There used to be a minefield between us, but all those bombs are gone now, blown up, and what’s left in its place is good ground. A good place to build. It’ll take work, but I’ve never been afraid of that.
“Dinner’s ready!” That’s Kezia, from the kitchen. “I didn’t cook it, so it’s safe, I swear.” The running joke of the past few weeks has been Kezia Claremont’s inexplicable talent for ruining absolutely everything she tries to cook. It’s a gift.
“She made an effort, though. She burned some toast,” Javier says as Kez carries a big pan of roasted chicken and vegetables to the table. “Let’s eat before Boot gets it all.”
Boot rolls over at the mention of his name and licks his chops. I pat him, and he grunts and closes his eyes. He’s recovered better than any of us.
“Yeah, get everything on the table,” I say, then slip out from Sam’s warmth to put on my coat, hat, and gloves. “I’m just going down to check the mail. Be right back.”
“Be careful!” That comes from everybody at once. Sam is watching to see if I need company. I shake my head.
I’m smiling as I make my way—carefully—down the hill. The house is secure. Clean and new, all the bad stuff gone. I know it’s symbolic. I know healing will take time and love and care.
But we’re family. We’re survivors.
I open the mailbox. There’s a lot stuffed inside, and I stand there next to the recycling bin at the end of the drive and dump off junk catalogs and mail until I’m down to a light handful of bills and a letter. I look down at the last envelope, and I stop moving. For a moment I stop breathing. If I could pause my heart, I would.
It’s Melvin’s handwriting. I look at the postmark.
Someone mailed it after he died. Maybe somebody in Absalom, one last, bitter stab out of the dark.
I look at the way he’s written my name in careful, precise block letters, and I remember seeing the frenzy that came over him when he killed Annie. I can’t forget that. Ever.
I think about it for a moment, and then I put the other mail in my coat pocket and walk farther down the hill, across the road, and onto the shore of Stillhouse Lake.
The water’s glassy and still, frozen into ripples. I look around on the shore and find a sizable rock about the size of a grapefruit. I hold Melvin’s letter in my healing left hand and toss the stone out with my right. It breaks easily through the thin ice and reveals dark, freezing water.
I get another stone, a smaller one, and I search in my pockets. The mail came with a rubber band. I use it to wrap Melvin’s letter around the rock.
I throw the weighted, unopened letter into the water. For a second I see the pale flicker of the paper, and I imagine the ink starting to bleed. In a few hours what he wrote completely gone, and the paper reduced to drifting fragments of pulp.
“Mom?” It’s Connor, calling from the house. I turn and wave. “Mom?”
“I’m coming,” I call back.
The last of my ex is at the bottom of the lake. No one will ever know what Melvin wanted to say.
And maybe, if he’s burning in hell, that will hurt him worst of all.