Priya, who had been watching from the front section of Weatherfield
Books with a book she hadn't read a single page of, was at my elbow before
I'd taken three steps back inside.
"That's you,' she said, looking at the photograph."
"It's not me. I'm seventeen.'"
"That is your face at thirty-five, give or take.' She looked at Cael, who
had followed us back in out of the rain. 'Where did you get this?'"
"It came with a letter. A month ago.'"
Priya studied him with the expression she used on things that
required evaluation. 'You're Cael.'
'The letters told you about me?'
"The letters tell Elara about everything apparently.' She handed the
photograph back to me. 'Who is she?'"
Nobody answered, because nobody knew. I stared at the face in the
photograph my face, displaced by decades, with those same dark eyes and
that same particular set to the mouth that my mother was always calling
stubborn and I preferred to call considered. The oxygen concentrator sat on
the grass beside her with the easy familiarity of a long companion.
She looked, I thought, like someone who had come through something
and was not sorry.
She looked like someone at peace with a life that had not been simple.
"The signature is E,' Cael said. 'The photograph came with the letter
signed E.'"
I said, very carefully: 'What if E isn't signing with an initial. What if
it's a name. A nickname.'
We stood with that for a moment.
"E for Elena,' Priya said slowly. 'E for'"
'I don't know anyone named Elena,' I said. 'Do you?'
Cael shook his head. Priya shook hers.
'We need to find out who she is,' I said.
The fourth letter came the next morning, which broke the pattern
they had been weekly until now. This one was different in other ways too. It
was longer. More urgent.
Elara. I know you have the photograph now. I know what you're
thinking when you look at it. Don't be frightened of what you
recognize that recognition is important information. It means
something about the nature of what connects us.
I need to tell you something difficult: there is a box in your
mother's closet. High shelf, behind the winter coats. Your name is
on it. She put it there years ago with the intention of giving it to
you later. She has been waiting for later the way people wait for
the right moment to say the hard thing with hope and
procrastination and the private fear that later may never come.
Do not wait for later. Open the box before December.
Inside you will find photographs. Look at them carefully. Look at
the ones of the woman you don't recognize. Her name is Elena.
She had your lungs. She had your eyes. She had your exact face,
thirty years ago.
She is the reason you are receiving these letters.
She is also the reason there is hope not the careful, managed,
don't-get-too-hopeful kind of hope that doctors and mothers
dispense in small doses. Real hope. The kind that changes things.
Ask Cael about his father's name. Write it down. Then ask your
mother.
E
I read this four times. Then I called Cael.
He answered on the second ring, which meant he'd been near his
phone, which meant he'd been waiting.
"I got another letter,' I said. 'Earlier than usual.'"
"So did I.' His voice was careful, contained. 'What does yours say?'"
I read it to him. A silence.
"What does yours say?' I asked."
A pause. Then he read:
Cael. Tell Elara your father's full name. Tell her where he grew up.
Tell her about Oregon she doesn't know yet that he was from
there. And when she goes quiet after you tell her, give her time.
What she's working through is not small.
I know you've been careful with this. I know you don't talk about
him easily or often. But some information has to be released for
the next thing to be possible. Trust her with it.
E
A long silence on the line.
"Your father's name,' I said. 'And where he grew up.'"
"His name was Marco,' Cael said. 'Marco Marchetti. He grew up in
Portland. He moved to Seattle when I was five.'"
Portland, Oregon. I thought about the letter in my hand. Ask Cael
about his father's name.
"Your father grew up in Oregon,' I said."
"Yes.'"
Something was forming at the edge of my understanding not yet
visible, like something large moving underwater, detectable only by the
displacement it created.
'Give me twenty minutes,' I said. 'I need to talk to my mother.'
My mother was eating breakfast alone at the kitchen table when I
came in. She was in her work clothes she was always in her work clothes
by seven, had been since we moved to Orvane, had been since my father left
and she was reading something on her tablet with the focused inattention of
a person who needs the appearance of occupation.
She looked up when I sat down across from her.
"You're up early,' she said."
"Mom. I need to ask you something.'"
She put the tablet down. My mother had the particular attentiveness
of someone who has been braced for hard questions for two years and has
learned to receive them without flinching. It was one of the bravest things
about her, though I had not yet told her so.
"There's a box,' I said. 'In your closet. With my name on it.'"
The quality of stillness that came over her face was answer enough.
"How long has it been there?'"
She took a breath. 'Since you were diagnosed.'
"What's in it?'"
'Photographs. Some letters. Things I thought things I was saving.'
She pressed her lips together. 'For later.'
"Can I see it?'"
Another breath. 'I'll get it tonight. After work.'
"Mom.' I waited until she looked at me. 'There's something else. Did
you ever know someone named Marco Marchetti? He would have been in
Oregon, maybe late twenties or thirties, mid-nineties?'"
The change in her face was subtle a micro-expression, a fraction of a
second but I had been studying my mother's face my whole life and I
caught it. Something moved through her expression like a current under
still water.
"Why are you asking about Marco Marchetti?' she said, and her voice
was very careful."
"You knew him.'"
It was not a question. She heard that.
'Elara'
"Mom. Who was he?'"
She was quiet for a long time. The refrigerator hummed. From
somewhere outside, I could hear the first movements of the city waking up.
Then she said: 'He was the man Elena loved. And Elena was the
reason you are alive.'