Chapter 7: What Gavin Didn't Say
She put the box on the kitchen table when she got home.
Gavin was in the sitting room.
She could hear the television, low.
She stood in the kitchen doorway.
"How was it?" he called.
"Come in here."
The television went quiet.
He appeared in the doorway, still in his work clothes, jacket off, tie loosened.
He looked at the box on the table.
"What is that?"
"Letters your father wrote.
Thursday evenings, for eighteen months.
There are four with my name on them."
Gavin came closer.
He looked at the box but didn't reach for it.
"Are there any for me?"
"I don't know.
Ruth said the others were hers.
She kept those back."
He stood there.
"Gavin." She looked at him directly.
"I need you to tell me something honestly."
"All right."
"The night your father came home from his second surgery.
The night Ruth said the house was empty.
Where were you?"
He was quiet for a moment.
A specific kind of quiet.
"We had the Hargreaves dinner," he said.
"The client.
The one that turned into the Whitmore account."
"I remember."
"I thought—" He stopped.
"I thought Mum would call if it was urgent.
She didn't call."
"She didn't call because she was handling it herself.
She always handled it herself.
That was the problem." Lauren kept her voice even.
"He sat in that kitchen for four hours, Gavin."
"I didn't know that."
"You didn't ask."
He looked at the floor.
"No.
I didn't ask."
She pulled out a chair and sat down.
Not in anger.
Just in tiredness.
"I'm not trying to make you feel worse," she said.
"I did the same thing.
I told myself he had Ruth, he was fine, he was the kind of man who didn't need checking on.
I told myself that because it was easier than going."
"Lauren—"
"I'm saying it out loud because I think we have to." She put her hand flat on the box.
"He wrote us letters he never sent because he kept hoping we'd come back on our own.
We didn't.
And then he d*ed and Ruth planned a brunch so the whole thing would be witnessed."
Gavin sat down across from her.
"What do we do now?" he said.
Not defensively.
Just asking.
"I think we start by reading these." She tapped the box once.
"And then I think you should call Ruth and ask if you can come over.
Not to contest anything.
Not to negotiate.
Just to sit with her."
"She might say no."
"She might.
But I think she'll say yes."
He looked at the box.
"Was Clara there today?"
"Yes."
"What's she like?"
Lauren thought about it honestly.
"She's not what I expected," she said.
"She's quiet.
She didn't gloat.
She told me she tried to refuse the property and Ruth talked her out of it."
Gavin looked up.
"She tried to refuse it?"
"Ruth told her accepting it was the only way to honor what your father intended."
He sat with that for a moment.
"She sounds like she genuinely cared about him," he said.
"I think she did."
"More than we did," he said.
Quietly.
Not as an accusation.
As a fact.
Lauren didn't argue with it.
"In that season," she said.
"Yes.
More than we did in that season."
He nodded.
He reached out and put one hand on top of the box, next to hers.
Not opening it.
Just resting there.
"Read them with me," he said.
She looked at his hand on the box.
"Not tonight," she said.
"Tonight I need to read mine alone.
But yes.
The others, together."
He pulled his hand back.
He stood up and went to fill the kettle without being asked.
She opened the box.
The first envelope was on top, the date in the top corner, the curl on the L.
She picked it up and held it for a moment, feeling the weight of whatever was inside.
From the counter, Gavin said, "Tea?"
May you like
"Please," she said.
And opened the first letter.
