When the Colonel Came to the Estate

Dana put on gloves from her portfolio, which told me she had expected some version of the unexpected.

She aligned the torn pieces on the table.

The message was short, typed in black ink, unsigned.

Beneath the sentence Hale had remembered was another line he had not seen.

My name was there.

Nora Ellis Pembroke was never meant to enter this family.

Ask Charles what he buried before Wesley was born.

My eyes lifted to Charles.

All color had drained from his face.

Wesley stared at his father as if the floor had shifted beneath him.

Margaret whispered, “Charles?”

My father’s expression became unreadable, which frightened me more than anger would have.

June woke then, blinking up at the chandelier, and the tiny sound she made seemed impossibly normal in a room suddenly crowded with the past.

Charles reached for the mantel to steady himself.

“Who sent that?” Wesley asked.