Love Lettering

by Kate Clayborn

  “I read it,” she says, shrugging. “Following protocol, for his good and yours.”

  “Of course,” I say, my face flushed, my fingers tight around the envelope.

  “I always wanted my wife to write me love letters.”

  My heart thunks thunks thunks in anticipation. Agent Tirmizi seems nice and all, and I’m sure it’s a disappointment about her wife, but I’d really like her to leave now. I’d really like to read this letter alone.

  “She’s more of a Post-it note stuck to the refrigerator kind of woman.”

  “Yeah,” I say, as though I know anything about her wife. I only want to go, but I suppose running from a literal FBI agent would be a poor decision. Anyway, I’m already tired from all the walking I did.

  “A few years ago, though, she got me a book of them. Famous love letters.”

  Wow, okay. Does she also want to give me an inventory of the contents of the refrigerator that her wife leaves the Post-its on? Or can I finally, please, please go upstairs and read this—

  “What I’m saying is, I’ve read a lot of them.”

  She has a small smile on her face that hints she’s been stalling me on purpose, making me sweat this. I hope they do put her in those windowless rooms sometimes to make the bad guys squirm. They probably leave with their eyelids looking like throw pillows, too. But I keep my eyes fixed on hers, my feet steady where I stand, and her smile widens briefly.

  Approvingly.

  She nods toward the letter, then looks me straight in the eye. “That one’s a good one.”

  And when she turns to open the door of her car, I know she’s not just talking about the letter.

  Chapter 21

  Dear Meg,

  Sending you this letter may be a mistake.

  That’s what Agent Tirmizi told me when I asked her whether I could write to you. She reminded me, in stark terms, that I have caused a great deal of difficulty in your life, difficulty you were not able to prepare for or decide for yourself. She has warned me that all this means you might have reason not to keep a letter from me private, that you might have reason to sell a letter I send to you. Knowing you as I do, I don’t believe this is a great risk, but if it is—if it is a mistake, Meg, it is a mistake I won’t regret making. It is a mistake for which I would deserve the consequences, and if this letter shows up on some website tomorrow, or the next day, or any day after that, I hope you know I would not blame you.

  Whatever it is that I deserve, what is more important is that you deserve to know about the many mistakes I have made over these last several months. As I am sure Agent Tirmizi will mention to you, I have been quite isolated since Friday, and while I have spent a great deal of my time answering and re-answering questions, I have also had a great deal of time to think about those mistakes. I enumerate them. I work them out like equations. I work backward through each step. I try to see all the places I went wrong.

  I suppose the first and worst one is that I came to the shop this spring to see you, which has, to my profound regret, exposed you to this scandal in ways that, as I hope this letter will make clear, I was foolishly, selfishly unprepared for. That evening, I knew, from the second I walked through the door of the shop, that I would be withholding something from you, because I knew I could not tell you the full story of what I had seen in your letters. Everything I have told you about Avery and me was true: I did disappoint her. I was quiet and overly reserved, sometimes too blunt, and as a guest at the many social commitments that were important to her, I never could quite master the kind of social interaction that she needed in a partner. As I told you that day in the park, we each had our reasons for attempting the relationship, and we each had our reasons for knowing it wasn’t working. The letters in your program confirmed what I always knew.

  But they did something else, too. This is what I could not say, and still will not be able to say fully, not for some time. What I can tell you is that in the months prior to the wedding, something had been on my mind at work, something involving the group within the company that worked on investment securities. I could not understand the returns this group was producing so consistently. I could not understand how the math worked, though I did not expect to find anything untoward. Initially, I think I might have been looking for some kind of game to play, something that could connect me to the math I grew up loving so much. As you may have gathered, I have not felt connected to that in a long time. So here was a problem in front of me, and I could only find the solution by trying, again and again, to work backward—to reverse engineer the numbers. At first it was challenging, the most challenging math I had done in ages, and I enjoyed working on it.

  Eventually, though, I realized that it was not, in fact, challenging math. It was impossible math. I could not understand the numbers because the numbers did not make sense. I cannot say here to whom I brought this information first. What I can say is that, initially, I was told that I had only uncovered a simple mistake, one that I was assured would be fixed.

  Once, you told me that when you are feeling most inspired, you see letters sketch themselves in your mind all the time—at night when you’re falling asleep, first thing in the morning when you wake, when you’re walking or waiting for the train or cooking or eating. I suppose that’s the closest way of describing how I felt, for weeks afterward. In the pool, I could see the numbers in my head. I could picture them, swimming along as smoothly as I was, except every once in a while, a splash, a missed stroke.

  So that word, “mistake”—it stuck with me, even as I wanted to trust what I had been told about it being fixed. It stuck with me even after Avery and I split up, after I’d tried to convince myself that the code in the program was only about our relationship. It stuck with me enough that I checked the math again. It stuck with me enough that I agreed, at a certain point, to check these numbers as part of a larger investigation, about which I can say no more here.

  When I first came to you, Meg, I never thought that there would be any reason for my curiosity about your letters to cross paths with the numbers work I have been doing regarding this case. I told myself you and I would speak once, and I would get some answers, and we would go our separate ways. But of course I should have known this was a mistake, too. The first time I ever saw you—when I was sitting next to a woman I was supposed to marry—I knew I felt something for you, something for the way you smiled and talked and drew. I deluded myself thinking I wouldn’t feel the same way when I saw you again this spring. When you found my card and e-mailed me, I should have said no. When you walked away from me in Midtown, I should have let you go. I should have known that every time I let myself get closer to you, you were getting closer and closer to the risk for this exposure, this scandal. But I suppose I got greedy, and given what I have accused some of my colleagues of, I certainly see the irony. I wanted—even for a little while—to be around your smile and your conversation and your talent, and eventually, your way of seeing this city. And then I wanted everything else. Your kiss, your body close to mine, your love. I wanted your forever.

  Last week, when we saw Avery on the street—I know what you must’ve thought then, and I dread what you certainly must think now. I know that my reaction to seeing her, my shock at seeing her, must be confirmation for you of everything that’s now in the papers about me—that I am a scorned party in a relationship that went wrong, that I could not let her go, that my feelings for her are what led to my involvement in this case. It is true, as I have always told you, that I cared about her, that I still care about her. When I saw her, I was reminded, in a concrete way, how she would be hurt by all this, how her life would change because of her father’s crimes. I was reminded of how I would be, at least in part, responsible, and I hated and still hate to know this. I hate to think that she is suffering because of what I have helped reveal about her father.

  But my care for Avery does not account for the full extent of my shock in that moment, because right then, I could see—though not fully—the pote
ntial for how this scandal might touch you. I could see that, when the story eventually broke, Avery might remember seeing us together. I could see that your name might eventually be drawn into this story, as a person who is now involved with me, and as a person who was once involved, however briefly, with my and Avery’s wedding plans. I knew already (I had been warned already) that there was potential for blowback on me, that the press might treat me as though my motivations were not pure. But I did not truly see, until that moment, that there would be blowback on you.

  I thought I could protect you. And I was a fool.

  That foolishness extends to another of my mistakes, the one that has surely caused you the most pain. It is my worst lie of omission, something I should have told you much sooner, and something that probably would have never mattered at all had I not come to see you that first day, had I not let myself get involved with you. I did tell Avery about what I had seen in the wedding program. At the time, this seemed to me to be the right thing, the honest thing to do. I showed her what I’d seen and told her I thought we should talk about the wedding and whether we should get married at all. She did not believe what I had seen in your letters was intentional. She believed that I was seeing what I wanted to see, that I was looking for some kind of sign. But still, she admitted she was relieved. It wasn’t easy or comfortable, but we did part on good terms, and I did not think she had ever told anyone else about that program. I did not think anyone—other than me, and her—had a copy of it. But of course Avery and her family are in a desperate situation. And of course they have many friends in which to confide, friends who are eager to defend them. I am a convenient target. Anything I have been involved in now must seem like fair game to them. All of it, Meg—all of it should have occurred to me sooner.

  I need you to know that I did try, desperately, to stop this. When I left you that night, even before I’d had any thought about that program, I called Agent Tirmizi and begged her to let me tell you. I begged her for some way to help me make sure my mistakes would not be irreparable. But as it turns out, Agent Tirmizi and her colleagues also had to keep many things hidden from me, including other sources they had, and a newly accelerated timeline for arresting Mr. Coster. I believed I had time to explain things to you, Meg. I made that promise to you fully intending to keep it. And if what I write next gets me into trouble with the people who read this letter before it gets to you, so be it: I would have broken my promises to them to keep my promise to you. I would have told you everything after your pitch. (How was your pitch?) I would have risked everything to warn you.

  This is probably all the explanation I’ll be allowed to give you, unless I want this letter marred with black stripes of redaction or worse. But there is more I have to write, and I hope you will keep reading.

  Last night I stayed awake for hours, worrying for you, wondering how it must be for you—reading all this in the news and not being able to reach me, all my promises to you unfulfilled. I kept thinking about what signs you’d send me now, if you’d write to me and tell me you thought it was all a mistake, too. I keep thinking, what if you writing that word all those many months ago wasn’t because you were warning me, or Avery? What if you were somehow warning yourself? What if you knew, somewhere deep down, that I would be a mistake in your life?

  I hate to think it. But it might be true, and I am so sorry. I have brought to your life the kind of secrecy and upheaval you never wanted to experience again. The consequences you may suffer to your business and to your heart I will regret for the rest of my life. I have spent all these months involved in the investigation of a man who made selfish choices, choices that have ruined the lives of the people around him. When all this began, I never thought it would end with me feeling that I had something in common with a man as dishonest as Alistair Coster. But now I see so clearly that I do.

  I don’t know how to explain that thinking of all this—enumerating all these mistakes, writing them out in the dusty chalkboard of my brain, even knowing I won’t ever be able to solve any of them—is the only thing comforting me right now. I feel closer to you with this word in my mind, I guess, because in spite of everything, your letters saved me. And while I am sure it doesn’t seem so now, the message you sent to me, or to Avery, or to yourself—in the end, it will have done a great deal of good for a lot of people who stood to lose so much.

  It’s funny, isn’t it, what happens to a word when you write it over and over again? You see it differently. I’ve always thought of the word “mistake” as meaning an error, a miscalculation. But now that I’m finishing this letter to you it reminds me of something I should have told you before. For most of my life, whenever I wasn’t with my family, I felt, somehow, mis-taken. Mistaken as cold or rude or boring or distant. All my best intentions, in school, at work—mistaken. But you were the first person in this city who made me feel I was more. To be able to see this city through your eyes, to be able to play games with you and laugh with you, to have you tease me about my tea and my posture and my terrible couch, to watch you create so many beautiful things—it has been the only thing that has made me feel like myself in these last months. It is more than I have deserved, but I am still so grateful.

  When I sat down with this blank pad of paper, I wished I could send you a sign, something I could hide in this apology that would tell you how much you have meant, still mean, always will mean to me. But I don’t suppose I have much of a stomach for hiding things anymore, and while there is not much I am looking forward to about the days to come, being able to be honest again—being able to say exactly what I mean—is one thing about this I do embrace.

  So: I am sorry. I am sorry, and I love you, and the time I have spent with you has been the best time of my life. No matter where I go after this, I will never take a step without wishing you were walking beside me, and I will never see a sign without wishing you were there to see it with me.

  Maybe there is one sign I could send you, even though it won’t be your favorite kind. But I’ve always been better with numbers, Meg, and the numbers I have written below—I think they should be easy to decode.

  And they will be scored on my heart forever.

  All my love,

  Reid

  Chapter 22

  I’d stared at those numbers for a long time.

  I hadn’t even bothered to go inside with Reid’s letter. I’d read it right there on the sidewalk, alone, through a blurry sea of tears, and when I finished I’d read it all again. Then I’d taken out my phone, bypassing every single worthless notification on it.

  I may not know much about numbers, but I know, in spite of what he kept hidden from me, everything I need to know about Reid.

  And so he’d been right. The numbers were easy for me to decode.

  And they’d told me what to do next.

  From the passenger seat of the last rental car on the lot, a creaky, amenities-limited two-door Ford, Sibby reads off directions to me, occasionally getting distracted by her repeated fiddling with the radio, an old habit that used to make me grind my teeth in frustration back when we were teenagers. Now I’m too nervous, too focused to care much. Crammed into the tiny backseat is Lark, my phone held up to her ear as she talks to Lachelle. “She didn’t let us see it,” she’s saying, and I think I can hear Lachelle’s shout of protest from here. “I know,” Lark says.

  “Tell her we’ll call back,” I say. “I think we’re getting close.” I jut out an elbow to dislodge Sibby’s arm from where she’s toying with the tuner again, trying to find something worth singing to. “What next?” I ask her.

  With the help of Sibby’s Google Mapped directions, it’s only a few more turns before I’m pulling into the lot of a nice but nondescript-looking hotel in New Jersey, one of those ones with “suites” for extended stays.

  “This is it?” says Lark, poking her head between the seats and ducking to peer out of the windshield.

  “It has to be it,” I answer.

  “Jersey,” Sibby says. “
Why would they bring him here?”

  “Cam did this movie once about witness protection,” Lark says. “Maybe it’s that.”

  “He’s not going into witness protection,” I say, but I guess I don’t really know. “Anyway, they’d take him farther away than Jersey for that.” Barely two hours, I reassure myself, thinking back over the drive here. I’m sure he’s quite safe.

  I unbuckle my seat belt and open my door, but Sibby stops me with a hand on my forearm. “Want to check your hair first?”

  I roll my eyes, but also I flip down my visor and check my reflection in the tiny, cloudy mirror there. Listen, it is definitely not great, but it’s also not as though Reid cited normal-sized eyelids or brushed hair as a reason he loves me.

  He loves me.

  I quickly smooth my unruly hair, mostly to assuage Sibby’s concerns, and start to get out again.

  “Meggie,” Sibby says, and I look over at her again. “You’re good, right?”

  It’s not the first time she—or Lark—has asked since I’d flung myself through the apartment door, the pages of Reid’s letter clutched tight in my hand, my mind already racing toward what I needed to do next. Both of them, in their own ways, had made sure I slowed down, had made sure I’d thought it through. Sibby, who’d seen me through the revelation of another big scandal once upon a time, had furrowed her brow in worry. “This is a lot to handle, Meg. This kind of secret from someone you—” She broke off, apparently cautious about repeating everything I’d told her on Friday night. “Someone you felt so strongly about.”

  Lark, too, had been tentative. Maybe she’d been optimistic yesterday—with our girl-power sleepover on the horizon—about how I could salvage my business, but in the light of day, she’d been more hard-nosed about it. “Being in the news, Meg,” she’d said with the serious expression of someone who knows what it’s like to be in the news. “It can be a lot to navigate. And if it’s between your work and him . . .”