Page 67 of By the Letter

Chuckling, I glanced at Shira with her friends halfway across the room, and my breath got stuck in my throat. It was incredible to think a few months ago, I’d thought her face was forgettable.Nothingabout her was forgettable.

Her beauty was soft, subtle, but it was there if you took the time to look. I saw it when she was asleep on my couch, wrapped in a fuzzy blanket, but today, she was something else. Her hair, which I’d become somewhat obsessed with, had been curled and arranged away from her face, flowing down her back. Her dress was sweet, pretty, feminine, exposing her delicate collarbone and floating over the rest of her like a dream.

“Of course he did.” Rosalie leaned closer, dropping her voice. “Though, I’d argue it was you who did the cracking since you’re the one who got her pregnant.”

“And you’d be wrong. I may have gotten in there, but I still don’t think I’minthere.”

She patted my shoulder. “You’re no quitter, dude. Don’t give up.”

I laughed again. Rosalie was a gem. Nate had definitely fumbled the bag.

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

When lunch was served, Rosalie and I were seated with Jake Hayes, Clara Rossi, and Luca and Saoirse Rossi, along with a few other people I knew socially. We ate, made small talk, and listened to the presentations about everything Building Dignity had done and planned to do in the future. Shira was nowhere in sight, but I assumed she was running things from somewhere in the background, where she preferred to be.

I would have laughed at how utterly out of his gourd Elliot looked by the time Kit took the stage if I hadn’t understood himon a deep level. Kit and Shira had been working day and night to get ready for today when they should have been resting, and there was nothing either of us could have done to stop them. I had a feeling it was doubly worse for Elliot since his wife was so close to her due date, but it hadn’t been easy for me to watch Shira dragging ass every night when she got home.

I tuned in to Kit’s speech when she mentioned Shira’s name.

“As some of you might have noticed, I brought in a partner to run Building Dignity with me. I met Shira Goldman a few years ago. She and her late husband, Frank, have been our most steadfast, generous supporters, and I came to recognize how personal affordable, safe housing is to Shira. She and I think it’s important to humanize those in need and understand how people might become unhoused. She gave me permission to tell you a little bit of her story.”

I barely breathed as Kit continued, bracing myself to hear something I already knew would wreck me.

“Shira’s father was successful in his high-paying career, while her mother stayed home with her. From the outside, they were a perfect little family, but as some of us know too well, things aren’t always as they seem. Her father was a violent, controlling alcoholic who abused her mother and kept her pinned beneath the boot of his wealth and power. Over the years, Shira learned to be quiet. She only cried in her closet and never asked for anything. Her mother endured until her father turned his violence on Shira. As soon as her mother was able to get them out, they left, with only the clothes on their backs and the address of a shelter.”

She learned to be quiet.

My fingers dug into my thighs hard enough to bruise, but it was my chest that hurt, cracking, splitting, splintering into sharp, jagged pieces.

“Her mother hadn’t been allowed to work during her marriage, and with no skills, it was difficult to find a job. But she endured, and they survived. Years of kindness and charity led to them finally being approved for affordable housing. Shira didn’t have a permanent home until she was in her teens.”

Kit scanned the sea of faces, most of whom had never struggled, had never known any kind of hardship or strife, myself included.

“It shouldn’t take years of surviving and enduring to give a child a home they can call their own. Every family should have a safe place to live. Shouldn’t we all view that as a basic human need? At Building Dignity, our mission is to help as many Shiras as we can—to break down obstacles so no mother has to survive and endure while her daughter cries in her closet.”

Kit paused to take a sip of water, and the entire room waited with bated breath for her to continue.

“While bidding on our wonderful auction items, think of that little girl. Think of all the children who are learning to be quiet, the families torn apart in shelters, the dignity you can help restore to hardworking people who just need a helping hand. Open your hearts and your bank accounts. We can’t help everyone, but the ripples you can create with your generosity will go on and on. Our Shira is proof of that. She’s here today, giving back because of the helping hands she met along her journey. Who could you help with your donation? Only time will tell. Thank you.”

My gut had been emptied with a dull spoon. Every word Kit uttered had been a punch to the solar plexus. There was nothing I could do to change what had happened to Shira, and it destroyed me.

How could anyone hurt her?

She cried in her closet.

She’d disappeared so Kit could tell her story. There was no way she wanted anyone to look at her while those details were being shared, but she had sacrificed her privacy to loosen the wallets of the audience—for the cause. So one less child had to survive and endure.

Beside me, Jake asked Clara, “Did you know all that?”

“Yes,” she murmured. “That was the bare-bones version.”

Unbearable.

Hearing this, knowing I was the last in a line of men—a line that had started with her own father—to hurt and mistreat Shira was unbearable.

I shot to my feet, but there was nothing for me to do and nowhere for me to go. I sat back down. The last thing Shira would want was for me to create a spectacle, and goddamn did I feel like sweeping every plate and glass off this table, smashing them to smithereens on the floor.

But if little Shira could be quiet for years, I could hold my tongue and tamp down my reaction for a few hours.

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