She was in the picture now and down the road in the direction of Cedar Hollow and beyond it. Milbrook and beyond that that all the machinery of a man who wanted this land badly enough to threaten children for it. Things were moving. They were moving toward something. Clare could feel it and she was going to be ready.
The letter arrived on a Friday. Clare was elbowed deep in bread dough when Emily brought it in from the porch and the way Emily held it at arms length slightly like something that might bite told Clare everything before she read a single word. The envelope was heavy cream paper, the kind that cost money. The return address was Denver. The name printed in the corner was Harriet Mercer.
Emily set it on the table without speaking. Clare wiped her hands on her apron and looked at it. Does P know? Emily said. Not yet, Clare said.
Go get your schoolwork. I'll handle this. Emily didn't move. She was 14 and she was not fooled. And she had Eleanor Walker's eyes, and they were currently fixed on that envelope with an expression that was part fear and part the particular fury of a young person who has been through enough and is deeply tired of more things arriving to threaten what remains.
She wants us, Emily said. Doesn't she, Harriet? She wants to take us to Denver. Emily, Clare said, steady, calm, go get your schoolwork. Emily went.
Clare picked up the envelope. She read it standing at the kitchen counter quickly once through, then slower the second time. The language was formal and kind in the way that things are kind when they have lawyers behind them. Harriet Mercer expressed her deep concern for the welfare of Elellanar's dear children. She expressed her belief that Cedar Hollow and its circumstances could not provide what five children deserved.
She referenced her comfortable home in Denver, her husband's stable income, their established community. She used the word flourish three times. She did not say the word custody. She didn't have to. Clare set the letter down.
She stood at the counter for exactly 60 seconds and let herself feel everything she felt about it because 60 seconds was what she allowed herself. And then she put it away and went back to the bread. When Thomas came in at noon, she handed him the letter without preamble. She watched him read it. She watched his face go through the same sequence.
Hers had fast read, slow read, the jaw tightening incrementally with each sentence, a careful, deliberate flatness. That was the Walker family's version of controlled fury. Flourish, he said. I noticed that too, Clare said. My children are flourishing right here.
He said quietly. Dangerously quiet. Yes, Clare said they are. And we have documentation that says exactly that. She sat down across from him.