Page 113 of Conveniently Wed
He nodded slowly. “I think we should. Let’s start with this.”
He put an envelope on the tabletop between them and crossed his arms over his chest.
Curious, she picked up the missive. Spidery handwriting listed the return address as being in Chicago.
19
Edgar watched Fran’s face go pale as she looked at the letter’s return address.
He’d quickly recognized it from the orphanage where he’d been abandoned as a child. And he’d only had to read the first part of the letter to discover Fran had a hand in the letter’s arrival.
And it was clear by her expression she recognized it, too.
“You want to tell me what that is?” he asked.
“A letter?” she said, as if she wasn’t sure.
He raised one eyebrow at her. Let her squirm. After all, she’d been nosing into his personal business. Again.
She sighed heavily, as if expelling all the air out of her entire body.
“All right,” she said. “I sent a letter to the orphanage in Chicago. I hoped it might give you some closure, that someone might know about your mother.”
“When?”
“Back at Tuck’s Station. Before you came and got me for supper.” She spoke in a small voice, chin tucked down.
She was adorable.
He waited until she peeked up at him, then held out his hand, palm up.
“Let’s have it.”
She handed it to him, looking up at him from beneath thick lashes. “You’re not…mad?”
“Dunno yet,” he teased.
She shifted on her feet, raising up on her tiptoes to see as he ripped open the envelope.
He went to a bare spot on the long table and motioned her to come with him. “Sit with me?”
She didn’t hesitate and his heart bumped as she settled in at his elbow, her ear brushing his shoulder.
He unfolded the letter, his stomach dropping as he did so. Did he really want to know why his birth ma hadn’t wanted him any more? Why the director had put him on that train?
Wasn’t the past better off just left where it was—in the past?
Fran bumped his upper arm with her shoulder. “You don’t have to be afraid of whatever is in there,” she said quietly. “You’ve built a life that suits you. You have a…family that loves you.” She hesitated. “Whatever that letter says, you won’t lose any of that.”
She was right. She’d been right the whole time. Telling her about his mother and the director, just saying the words aloud, had somehow lessened his pain. It didn’t hurt moreto share his burden with someone else, it hurt less.
He cleared his throat. “Dear Edgar andMrs. White,” he read.
He had to stop and glance at her askance.
Her cheeks had gone a little pink, and she didn’t directly meet his eyes. He went back to the letter.
“I was so glad to receive your letter. Next week will be my last as director for the orphanage here and so I might not havereceived it if it came at a later time. God’s timing is always right!”
