Chapter 1 - Twenty-Four Hours
Anthony Vescari tore my mother's death notice in half before he even read her name.
"I don't take mail from trash," he said.
The fluorescent lights in the Seattle headquarters mailroom buzzed above us. A few feet away, a sorting machine clicked through the morning deliveries. Two employees stopped working. Neither stepped between the fifty-five-year-old owner of Vescari Freight and the courier standing in front of him.
I was twenty-two. My mother had died three days earlier. And I had spent the bus ride downtown telling myself that, no matter what this man said, I would not cry.
Anthony dropped the torn envelope on the concrete floor.
"Take it out with you."
I knelt. My courier jacket pulled tight across my shoulder as I collected the pieces. The sleeve slid above my wrist, exposing the pale crescent-shaped birthmark I had spent my childhood tracing with a finger. Mother called it my little moon.
"You should read it," I said.
He had already turned away. Then he saw my arm.
Anthony stopped so suddenly that the heel of his polished shoe squeaked on the floor. His eyes moved from the mark to my face, then back again. I had imagined this moment a thousand times. I had never imagined the fear in his expression.
"Where did you get that mark?"
"I was born with it."
His assistant, Mr. Keller, appeared at the doorway with a tablet tucked under one arm. "Sir, the acquisition call starts in eight minutes."
Anthony didn't answer. I unfolded the largest piece of paper and held it where he could see the black border, the funeral home's letterhead, and the name at the top.
MARIA REYES. AGE 48.
He stared.
"You have twenty-four hours," I said.
"For what?"
"To decide whether you're going to read what she left you before her memorial. After that, her papers go to the attorney she chose. I'm not asking twice."
My hands had begun to shake. A family photograph slipped from the inside pocket of my courier jacket and struck the concrete faceup. It showed a younger Anthony, his dark hair untidy, standing beside my mother in a cramped apartment kitchen. He was holding a baby wrapped in a yellow blanket.
He bent for it before I could move. I saw him notice the chipped blue mug in the background, the window behind the stove, my mother's smile.
"You remember her?" I whispered.
Mr. Keller looked from the photograph to his boss. "Anthony?"
"Go upstairs," Anthony said.
"But the—"
"Now."
The two mailroom clerks became deeply interested in their equipment. Keller stepped back. Anthony held the photograph by its edges as though it could cut him.
"Maria," he said, barely audible.
"She waited for you," I said. "Not at the hospital. She told me not to call you when she got sick. She waited twenty-two years for you to stop pretending we didn't exist."
He lifted his gaze. "We?"
I should have said the words simply. Instead I heard myself laugh, a small cracked sound.
"My name is Gina Reyes. I'm the baby in that picture."
Anthony's face went white. His fingers tightened around the glossy corner, but he didn't deny it. That told me more than a speech could have.
"Maria told you?" he asked.
"She told me everything she knew. Which isn't the same as everything that happened."
I took the picture from his hand. For a second he resisted, then let go.
"Your mother—how?"
"A stroke. It was fast at the end. She was at Harborview. The woman in the next bed sat with me until the doctor came." I swallowed. "You don't get to ask for details as though you were family. Not yet."
I tucked the picture away. Under the photograph lay one last torn strip of the notice. Anthony picked it up. The line printed across it was part of my mother's final instruction, dictated to her attorney while she could still speak: Offer him one opportunity to receive the letters himself.
"What letters?" Anthony asked.
"The ones she wrote to you. The ones that came back."
He shook his head. "Maria never wrote—"
"Don't."
The word echoed through the room, louder than I'd intended. I could feel the employees listening. So could he.
"There are seventeen envelopes," I said. "Some still sealed. Two have your company's return stamp. One came back with a note in your handwriting."
He put a hand on the sorting table. It was the first time I'd seen him need support.
"Let me see them," he said.
"Tomorrow. Eleven in the morning. The memorial room at St. Andrew's. Bring the truth, or don't come at all."
I walked out before he could offer money, ask for a private meeting, or turn my mother's life into an inconvenience he could schedule between calls.
Outside, cold rain had begun to collect on the curb. I climbed into the courier van, laid the photograph on the passenger seat, and finally let myself cry.
My phone rang before I reached the first light. The number belonged to my mother's attorney.
"Gina," she said, "someone from Vescari Freight just requested access to Maria's personnel file."
I gripped the wheel.
"Who?"
"The request carries Anthony Vescari's personal authorization."
For twenty-two years, he had stayed away. Now he was searching records before he'd even asked me if I was all right.
May you like
I thought I understood why.
Then the attorney said, "There's something else. Your mother wanted you to see one file before he did. It's labeled with your name."
