It is unlikely you will ever want to see me again, but I do hope when I return it will be as a better man, and perhaps, should you ever think of me, I will somehow receive your thoughts like a beam of light through the darkness.
Yours ever, Ray
She placed the letter on the table and scanned the document from the law firm. It was all as Ray had written. The money from Stern’s estate would be placed in trust for Tim’s care for the remainder of his life. He had ended his letter with a quote in Spanish. Something about how the honourable man shall arise one day from the ashes of his mistakes. She could only hope Ray was right.
The document she stowed in her bag. The letter and photo she held in her hands, prepared to tear them into pieces. But then she remembered Ray’s downcast look, and the regret in his eyes as they sat together in the car. At the sound of a dog’s excited bark, they had both looked up to see Tim standing on the front porch next to Lulu, his face tilted towards the sun.
She put the letter back in the envelope and tucked the photo in her wallet. It wouldn’t hurt to hang onto it. Perhaps in six months, she’d be ready to look at it again.
49
Lansford, New York
September, Present Day
At the top of the stairs, a letter awaited her, helpfully taped to the door by Erin’s landlady. But after everything she’d gone through in the past few months, the sight of a strange letter had lost the power to set her heart racing.
Following her meeting with Ray, she’d taken a week’s leave from the Meadows and headed straight for the Canadian border. In a small village on the shores of a placid blue lake, she had checked into a modest inn, hoping the quiet landscape would heal her body and salve her spirit.
Home. A sour smell greeted her as she stepped through the door. The cracked cornice moulding and dark, poky kitchen, once so charming, looked shabby and sad. Whatever spirit had animated the flat when she first moved in, caught up with her new job and the frisson of returning to America, had evaporated like mist in the sun. Through the window, she could see her Honduran neighbour playing with her baby on the grass. Celestina she was called. Later, when things settled down, Erin would stop by their flat with a gift.
She sank into a chair on the balcony and examined the envelope, front and back. A creamy oblong addressed in an elegant cursive. A printed label provided a return address. Mrs KG Hartley, 57 Old School Road, Carvill, Massachusetts. Erin had no idea who that might be. She slit open the envelope and extracted a single sheet of heavy paper embossed with the Meadows’ logo.
Dear Dr Cartwright,
I hope this finds you well. If you’re feeling up to it, would you be so kind as to meet me at the Meadows on Sunday afternoon, September 19th, at 3.00 pm? There’s an important matter I would like to discuss with you. No need to send a reply, as I shall be there in any event to take care of some other business. As you may recall, the staff and patients will be away on their end-of-summer camping trip to Lake George, so we shall have the place to ourselves.
Yours sincerely,
Katherine Hartley
Erin dropped the letter in her lap. She hadn’t the slightest idea who Katherine Hartley was. A member of the board, perhaps? If that was the case, the important matter likely meant a public dressing-down before they tossed her out on her ear. Surely, they wouldn’t keep her on staff when the lies about who she was became known. But it didn’t matter. She’d been planning to resign anyway. Where she would go wasn’t clear, though back to London seemed the obvious choice. If she were lucky, or begged, the Thornbury Clinic might take her back. Though she dreaded the thought of working for Julian again.
Her fingers sought the quetzal around her neck. It wasn’t there, of course. Lost at Stern’s farmhouse in the storm. The chain must have broken during her struggle on the roof, or shortly afterwards, only to be trampled in the mud by the police and paramedics. She’d briefly mourned the loss. But whatever power it once had to protect her from harm seemed no longer necessary.
Lying in the hospital bed in Burlington, with her arm taped up and her body bruised, she’d composed her resignation letter in her head. How could she teach her young patients that leaving their childhood behind to step boldly into the world was something to celebrate, when, in truth, it was full of betrayal, loss, and death? Who was she to teach them about courage when she’d been hiding in the shadows of her own childhood fears? Whatever strength she now felt, or how much she’d grown, she had yet to come clean about masquerading behind a new name and invented history, with her past locked in a vault. She was a fraud. Not fit to tell others how to live.
At least Tim was safe. Lydia called yesterday to say that things were still going well at the group home. After Erin had given her statement to the police, and the investigation into Stern’s death was closed, Tim was exonerated of all charges. In a week or so, Erin would drive up to Albany to see how he was getting on.
As for the matter of her father, the shock of knowing he was alive was something she had yet to grapple with. Why he’d made no attempt to find her after all these years was a question she would like to ask him. But he must have changed his name
