“What?”
“Four years ago. The first time I tried to get sober. I wrote him letters. A lot of letters. From the treatment center in Troy.” He looked at me carefully. “Sam says he never got any of them. I figured they got lost. Or I had the address wrong. But I just wondered if you knew what happened to them.”
The diner was very loud suddenly. Plates clattering. Someone laughing at the counter. The bell over the door.
I knew exactly what had happened to them.
They were in a shoebox on the top shelf of my bedroom closet.
I didn’t tell Greg. I said, “I don’t know,” and picked up my tea, and drank it even though it had gone cold.
He looked at me for a second too long. I think he knew I was lying. He didn’t push.
I drove home with both hands on the wheel. Sam was at Jordan’s for the afternoon. The house was empty. I went upstairs, opened the closet, pulled the step stool out from behind the vacuum cleaner, and reached up past the winter sweaters and the box of Christmas ornaments.
