Chapter 13 - THE LETTERS HE NEVER READ
Daniel moved before Victor could drop the match.
He slapped Victor's wrist against the wall. The flame died on the floor.
Victor swung at him.
Daniel ducked, drove his shoulder into his father's chest, and both men crashed against the old kitchen table.
Emily ran to Mara and cut the zip tie with a pair of sewing scissors she found in a drawer.
"Police are coming," she said.
"You think she's innocent? Ask her why she stopped filing custody petitions after 2009."
"Because he threatened you."
"Tell him how."
"Victor had a psychiatrist write that your recovered memories were causing emotional instability. He said if I appeared again, he would have you committed to a residential facility until you were eighteen."
Victor shrugged. "You were having panic attacks."
"Because you told me my mother was a drug addict who died alone."
He stopped seeing the man who had taught him to tie a tie, buy his first car, negotiate a contract.
He saw the man who had built love out of control and called it parenting.
Emily lifted the cash box.
"We're taking this."
Victor laughed. "Take it. Most of those letters say the same pathetic thing."
Daniel grabbed the first envelope.
His name was written in large careful letters.
Danny, age 6.
I don't know if your father will let you read this. I hope somebody does. I am alive. I love you. None of this is your fault. I am trying to come home.
Danny, age 8.
Danny, age 10.
Birthday cards. School-year letters. Polaroids. Copies of returned packages.
Nineteen years of proof that she had not forgotten him for a single birthday.
Victor moved toward the back window.
Mara blocked him.
"No."
He shoved her.
Daniel caught her before she fell.
When he looked back, Victor had climbed onto the fire escape.
"Daniel, he's heading to the roof."
"Let the police take him."
Then Victor shouted down through the broken window.
May you like
"If they arrest me, your wife loses her father too!"
Emily went still.
