In my mother’s signature.
I traced the loops with my thumb.
“She told me she knew nothing about the arrangements,” I said.
“Esther always said,” Bruce answered quietly, “that a girl who hides a cross in a blanket does not turn around and write ‘declines contact.’ I never believed that card. But I was afraid to be right.”
Anders put his arm around his father’s shoulders.
Bruce let him.
They stood like that, the two of them, and I watched thirty years of fear lift off a man’s back.
The second visitor came after dark.
It was almost ten.
The unit had gone quiet, and Cindy Jernigan came in softly with her flashlight pointed at the floor.
“Hon, somebody’s out here who says you’ll want to see her. She’s been in the parking garage for two hours.”
Sherry Heller stood in the hall in a hooded coat, with a Coach bag squeezed against her stomach.
