Page 45 of Snow Creek

I pause the tape and go to my office, where I dig deep into the bottom drawer of the Goodwill desk that I bought when I first came to Port Townsend. What I’m looking for is buried in a grave of other papers and clippings. I feel my muscles tighten even after all these years. There it is. It is a letter that I’ve folded, cried over, even once thrown away—only to retrieve it moments later. I no longer have the envelope that it came in, but I remember what it said in my mother’s handwriting: “For my daughter’s eyes only. Do not read this in front of the bank employees. There is a camera in the corner of the room. Turn your back to the camera before you read any more.”

There was a second one too: “For my son’s eyes only.”

I burned that one.

I carefully unfold the letter, knowing that Hayden might have been the one to go to the safe deposit box one day. I know with certainty that my mom and my stepdad had considered I might be a casualty of their choices, their lives.

Honey,

If you are reading the letter, then I am gone. As I write this, I don’t know what exactly that might really mean. It is one of two possibilities. He has captured me, or he has killed me. I know you will want to find out where I am; if I’m alive. I know that I cannot stop you from doing so. I am sorry that there is very little here to tell you where I might be. I have put some information into some other envelopes. I want you to take those along with this when you leave. Do not show any of it to anyone. If you do, not only will I die, you probably will too. Please sit down. There is a chair on the other side of this room.

I stop reading to take a moment to remember my fifteen-year-old self. How lost I was at that time. I feel that shiver looking at that letter. It’s like I’m in a car, driving past the worst, bloodiest car accident ever.

Honey, I have lied to you. I didn’t mean for my lies to spin out of control and frame so much of our lives. You have to believe me when I say that being a liar isn’t what I set out to be. I lied because it was the only course of action to save you, save me, save Hayden. I used to think that by ignoring the truth just maybe a little of my nightmare would go away. Pay attention to my words and remember the need for forgiveness. It is real. It is the only way to salvation.

The man who we have been running from our entire lives was not a jilted boyfriend. Not a stalker. At least not the kind of stalker that you—or I—could ever imagine. I felt as though you only needed to know a part of the story. You were so young when I started telling you the story, that I knew you would believe it. Two words here. Forgiveness and strength. For you to survive you must embrace both.

I set it down. I haven’t been breathing. I suck in more air as my mind races back to a conversation my mother and I had when I was around eleven. Maybe twelve. We were sitting outside on the back patio watching fireflies as they zipped through the lowest hanging branches of a big oak that spread over our entire backyard like it was protecting us. I loved that tree so much. When we moved that time, I vowed I’d live in a place again someday with a tree that had branches that functioned like caring arms. That afternoon a TV talk show did a segment about the impact of being a child star in Hollywood. It stayed on my mind well past dinner.

“Sometimes I feel like those kids on TV,” I told her.

Mom looked at me, the light from the flame of a small citronella candle playing off her beautiful, even features.

“What do you mean?”

“Those kids,” I said a little tentatively. Not because I felt tentative about what I was saying, but because I felt like I was lighting a fuse. “They are born into something. Their parents wanted to be a part of something. They didn’t have a choice.”

She looked at me with those penetrating eyes of hers, and then returned her attention to the fireflies and our beloved oak tree.

“Honey, you really feel that way?”

There was remorse in her voice, but not too much. Just a hint of regret. In some ways that was all I ever wanted from her. I wanted her to tell me that she was sorry our lives had been so screwed up. That she shouldered some of the blame. Even if she didn’t, really. “Sometimes,” I lied. I felt that way all the time. My mother’s choices had dragged me into a life that left me without any history of my own. I tried not to resent her, because I loved her so much. Yet, there were times when I just hated her for what she’d done to me, and to Hayden. As I grew older, I sometimes allowed myself to see her side of things. The reasons why she did what she did. My mother’s story was flimsy, but since she told it with such evasive conviction, I never really questioned it.

Those memories attack my brain with the ferocity of a thousand ice picks. I shake my head as if to free myself from a firestorm of nerves and questions, but I know I need to remember what happened in that bank vault: the day everything changed.

* * *

I sit in the corner of the vault with the letter in my hand. I need to face it. My heart rate is going faster. I look down on the paper and a tear drops on it. It leaves a shiny pool. I’m almost afraid to read on. I’m worried that her words will break my heart, that the betrayal she’s hinting at will be too great.

We’ve been running our whole lives from your father. It makes me ill to put those words to paper, but that’s the truth.

My father? My father is dead. He was an army enlistee who died in Iraq. I have carried his picture in my wallet for as long as I’ve had one. I have another reminder. I press my fingertips against the dog tags that hang around my neck on a silver braided chain that I’d saved up to buy from the Macy’s jewelry counter in Minneapolis.

The first tag has his name, enlistment number, and blood type.

Walters, William J.

FG123456Z

A Neg

On the second one was the next of kin:

Ginger Walters 1337 Maple Lane Tacoma, WA

For a moment anger and confusion well up as my emotions battle for some kind of strange supremacy. I have no idea where this is going, so I read on. I take in the last words in big, oxygen-free gulps.

What I have to tell you does not define who you are. Not at all. You are my beautiful daughter. I have done everything I can to spare you the reality of your conception. But you are here reading this, and you deserve to know the truth. You also can decide if you want to help me. If you don’t, I will die loving you anyway. If you don’t, please take care of your brother. Take him to my sister Ginger Rhodes’ place in Wallace, Idaho, and leave him there until after you are sure I am safe or dead. Your birth father will never harm him.

---