Yeah, he said. Come in. He made tea because she was a person who drank tea and because making something is something useful to do when you don't know what else to do. They sat at his kitchen table across from each other and for a minute they just let the quiet be there. Then she said, "Ryan thinks David left something in his business papers that gives him control over the client list.
He's been making that argument for 2 years. Does it?" No. The lawyer was very clear. She wrapped her hands around the mug.
But Ryan needs someone to be angry at, and I'm the only target still standing still long enough for him to aim at. Marcus watched her. I'm sorry you had to see that, she said. Don't apologize for that. It's embarrassing.
Why is it embarrassing? She looked up at him. Because it looks like I can't handle my own problems. You handled it, Marcus said. I was just standing in a driveway.
She almost smiled. You were doing your presence thing. My what? You just She gestured vaguely. Stand there like you're a load-bearing wall.
Marcus looked at her for a moment. Then he laughed. It surprised both of them. It was a real laugh, not polite, not social, but the kind that comes up from somewhere deep without permission. And something about the sound of it seemed to shift something in the room, ease some of the tension that had been sitting between them since she knocked on the door.
Clare laughed too briefly, and then her face settled back into something quieter. He said something tonight, she said. He asked me why I haven't gone through David's things yet. The last box, the one I brought from the house in Greensboro. Marcus waited.
There's a letter in it, she said. David wrote it. I don't know exactly when he gave it to his lawyer to hold with instructions to give it to me 6 months after he was gone. She paused. That was 3 and 1/2 years ago.
You haven't opened it. No, he didn't ask why. He could feel the Y from across the table. She said it anyway. I've thought about it a hundred times.
I've picked up the envelope and put it back down. She was looking at the tea, not at him. What if it's something I can't unknow? What if it changes how I remember him? What if it she stopped?
What if he's telling me something I don't want to hear? Or Marcus said, "What if he's telling you something you need to hear?" She looked up. People who write letters like that, Marcus said, "Usually write them because they're trying to do something for the person left behind. Not to themselves."