Page 52 of The Art of Dying

I shrugged one shoulder. “It sounds crazy, but when I put those unopened letters in that drawer, it’s like he’s trapped in there. He can’t hurt me.”

“Karen,” Naomi said, turning to me. She waited until I met her gaze. “I want you to listen to me. You’re not that girl who got kicked around anymore. You’re a crack shot and I’ve taught you how to neutralize a man three times your size in seconds. You’re married to avery largeMarine and surrounded by his friends who are just as large, very capable, and very scary. All of them love you like a sister and have exactly zero tolerance for bullshit. When they’re gone, you’ve got me. Real question: how could he hurt you?”

“He’s hurt me before.”

Caroline took my hand in both of hers.

Naomi wasn’t convinced. “That was a different life. A different you.”

I frowned. “He sends the letters when something big happens, and sometimes when small things happen.”

“But you’ve never read them,” Caroline said. “How do you know it has anything to do with what he knows?”

“It’s happened too many times to be a coincidence,” I said. “And he’s been able to track us down every time that we’ve moved.” I sighed. “I know it doesn’t make sense, and it drives Kitsch insane, but it makes sense to me.”

“We should read them,” Naomi said, looking to Caroline. “I wanna read them.”

“I don’t,” I said, firm.

“Naomi,” Caroline said in her soft voice, “going through something like that… I’m sure she’s developed ways to cope with the psychological aftermath. We shouldn’t pressure her.”

“Psychological aftermath,” I repeated. “That makes me sound insane. Am I insane? I guess thinking that keeping those letters in a drawer somehow controls the situation is kind of crazy.”

“Not being prepared is insane,” Naomi said.

“Naomi,” Caroline said, her tone thick with disapproval.

I took a deep breath, going over what we might read in my mind. I was anxious about not only what he might say, but what my closest friends might read. It was likely Mason would think Kitsch would be reading them and say things that were untrue or even vulgar to get a rise out of my husband. I wasn’t sure I wanted Naomi and Caroline—especially Caroline—to read anything like that.

Naomi stood. “Kitsch isn’t wrong. We should take a bottle of wine into your bedroom and start with the first letter. I’ll read them aloud, and we can pick them apart. Analyze them for intel. And then…thenyou’ll feel better. Knowing for sure if he’s just being creepy or if he’s gearing up for an ambush.”

Caroline was becoming uncharacteristically impatient. “Thanks for that, Naomi. If she wasn’t worried before, she is now.”

Naomi was unfazed. “I didn’t say anything she doesn’t already know. Wine. Papers all over the floor. Knowledge. Preparation. Tell me that doesn’t sound like closure.”

I thought about it for a moment and then stood up. “Okay, but this is going to be a two-bottle situation.”

“I’m not mad about that,” Caroline said, heading for the wine cabinet.

We stayed up far too late in my dimly lit bedroom, sitting on the floor next to my nightstand, analyzing every word of Mason’s letters under the light of the lamp. One package contained a Russian doll. The other a small figurine of the Statue of Liberty.

“You’re not the insane one,” Caroline said, looking overwhelmed. “We have that established. In some of these he’s angry, in others he speaks like you’re still together. In some he feels like Kitsch stole you from him, but in most he feels like you cheated. He doesn’t acknowledge Kitsch is the father of your children. In a few of those over there,” she says, nodding to a small pile, “he writes as if he thinks you were… I don’t know… impregnated against your will. It’s like he’s a different person with a new story in every letter.”

“He knew when I got the old Toyota and then the Tahoe,” I said. “How? How does he know when I’m pregnant? The letter congratulating me on Emily is post marked two days after my first doctor’s appointment to confirm the pregnancy.”

Caroline thought for a moment. “It could be anyone at the hospital. Do you know if anyone from Quincy is employed there? Or from anywhere Mason has lived?”

I shook my head. “There are so many people who work at that hospital. It could be someone who watches me from afar, someone I’ve never even met.”

Naomi looked at the envelope in her hand, turned it over and then back again. She looked up, deep in thought, ignoring that Caroline and I were waiting for her to bring us up to speed.

“He starts traveling overseas, but there’s only one letter from Russia. Then, they come consistently from a P.O. Box in Quincy. We could easily find out the owner of the P.O. Box. It’s probably his bitch mother. That’s where we should start.”

Caroline shook her head, first at Naomi, then at me. “Don’t poke the bear, Mack. I veto this idea.”

“I agree. He’ll find out and that’ll provoke him.”

Naomi frowned, rubbing her thumb over the return address. “Why, though? Why conceal where he is when he didn’t before?” Her eyes met mine. “I got it. The reason he’s overseas is a secret. I bet he’s still there. That’s why he hasn’t knocked on your door.”

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