by Cat Winters
The letter writer had addressed the envelope to DR. A.M. LIND. She could not have known that just because I was a psychologist, I did not necessarily possess a PhD, but I found the respectful title of “Dr.” to be kind.
However, it was the return address that ensnared my full attention.
Eleanor Rook
289 Alamo Road
Friendly, Kansas
My eyes darted back and forth across all of the various names. The letters seemed to merge together and rearrange themselves and render the words familiar and strange all at once. I shivered from a brutal bout of chills.
Eleanor: The name of Violet Sunday’s supposed sister.
Rook: Wasn’t that . . . Yes, wasn’t Rook the surname of the teacher who first purportedly taught Violet mathematics?
Friendly, Kansas: Good old Friendly.
Using the tip of a fingernail, I ripped the envelope open, taking great pains not to damage the contents within, yet still rushing to see what waited inside. My eyes watered in anticipation; my legs fidgeted. Pale-blue stationery came into view, and suddenly there I was, reading a letter penned a half-continent away in Janie O’Daire’s wondrous world of Friendly.
December 1, 1925
Dear Dr. Lind,
As you can probably understand, I was quite taken aback when your letter arrived, and I have spent the past several days gathering the courage to respond. I have, indeed, received correspondence from a man named Michael O’Daire, but his letter unsettled me so deeply, I considered it a cruel prank and refused to pay it any heed. He contacted me back in 1921, and I tucked his envelope deep into a drawer and have not thought of it much since.
The receipt of your letter, however, has brought back that same flurry of emotions I experienced four years ago. I admit, this time around, curiosity has become my principal reaction.
I did, in fact, once have a sister named Violet. She was born and raised right here in Friendly, Kansas, and she died tragically one cold January in 1890 at the age of 19. Her married name was Jessen, but our maiden name was Sunday. We had a dog named Puppy, not Poppy, as mentioned in your letter. Poppy would have been a far more creative name, but I believe that I, the younger child, had insisted upon Puppy, and I tended to get my way. Violet married shortly before she died. She bore no children, and both of our parents are deceased. Aside from my grown children, I am the sole remaining member of my side of the family, and I am intrigued beyond words about this little girl who claims to have been my sister. I cannot think of any rational reason why a child living miles away on the shores of Oregon—a girl born decades after my sister’s death—would say she had been our lovely Violet.
Yes, my sister was a mathematician, as the child in question has stated. Unfortunately, Violet lived in an era that prized female education even less than we do now, and my parents refused to pay for her to attend college. She rushed into marriage instead and never got a chance to finish writing a geometric proof that had been perplexing her. Every single day I have wondered what she would have accomplished had she been allowed to live and continue her studies. When I think of Violet, I think of a book half-written, the ending an elusive mystery, out of my grasp, forever lost.
The more I write, the more I long to meet this child of whom you and Mr. O’Daire speak. I am a lifelong Presbyterian who has never been taught to believe in reincarnation, so what I am offering goes entirely against my upbringing. I invite you to bring the child to visit my house at your convenience. All I ask is for some notification in advance. We have a nice hotel in nearby Brighton, and I could arrange to have my husband pick you up and bring you out to see me. Take the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railway to the Brighton Depot in eastern Kansas.
If you believe a visit would help this child, then please accept my offer. You have piqued my interest, Dr. Lind.
Yours sincerely,
Eleanor Sunday Rook
CHAPTER 19
Early that following morning, the first Saturday of Christmas vacation, I packed up my suitcases in a boardinghouse in the coastal town of Tillamook and climbed aboard a train heading northward, one that would pass through Gordon Bay.
During that second arrival at the little log depot, the wind merely whimpered. No forces of nature knocked me to the ground, but the temperature couldn’t have been any higher than twenty-five degrees. The moist air chilled my earlobes, which poked out from beneath a gray hat I brought from Portland to replace my maroon cloche.
Despite the cold, my blood flowed with vigor. I gathered up my suitcases and walked the mile or two trek to the Gordon Bay Hotel.
The wrought-iron archway that bore the name of Michael O’Daire’s establishment rose overhead on the driveway. In the graveled lot to the south of the main entrance, someone had parked a bottle-green automobile, indicating that an actual guest besides myself had decided to check in. A Christmas wreath made of fresh boughs of pine hung on the bare planks of the front door, and through one of the lobby’s eight-foot-tall windows I spied a Christmas tree, festooned with glass ornaments and strings of popcorn. I smelled chimney smoke and another famous O’Daire ham, roasting down in the basement.
Inside, I found a young couple in fur coats of near-matching shades of caramel. They stood at the front desk with their elbows pressed against the counter, their backs facing me, and they spoke to Michael, whom I heard but couldn’t see. Michael’s mother waited at the base of the staircase with a pot of tea balanced on a silver tray, and her bottom jaw just about plummeted to her knees when she spotted me stepping into the lobby. Michael handed the guests a key and inquired if they needed assistance with their bags. From between the guests’ heads, he caught sight of me as well. He startled and blinked, and then he combed his left fingers through his hair and asked, “Are—are you sure?” when the male member of the couple told him he didn’t mind carrying the bags on his own.
“I’ll show them upstairs, Michael,” said his mother. “This way, please, and mind the third step. We’ve just discovered it needs mending.”
The female member of the couple glanced over her shoulder at me with youthful blue eyes, her rouged lips slightly parted, as if I frightened her. I felt an ominous specter, lurking there in the lobby with my unannounced appearance, my frosted skin, and the letter from a past life tucked inside my coat pocket. The couple followed after Mrs. O’Daire. Michael braced his hands against the surface of the desk and tapped his right pinkie against the dark wood.
Without a word, I lowered my bags to the floor and walked toward him, tugging Eleanor Rook’s envelope out of my pocket. Mrs. O’Daire and the guests journeyed out of sight up the staircase, beyond Michael, and soon it was simply he and I and the letter.
“You’re back,” he said. “I didn’t think—”
“I have something you must see.” I laid the envelope on the desk in front of him, next to a small potted Christmas tree. “It’s from Friendly, Kansas.”
“What?”
“Read it, please.”
He regarded the envelope without touching it, his posture stiff, his hands still forced against the countertop. “Does it say—?”
“Just read it, Michael, please. I want you to verify that I’m not imagining its contents. I want you to swear you’re not somehow behind it.”
He sucked in his breath and then wiggled the sky-blue stationery out of the envelope. I watched as his eyes moved back and forth over Mrs. Rook’s handwritten message. His rate of breathing increased. He must have read the letter at least twice, if not thrice—he perused it for ages without ever switching his gaze back to me.
“What do you make of it?” I asked.
He covered his mouth, still staring the letter down, still clutching the paper in his free hand. “Oh, God!” he said from behind his palm. “Oh, Jesus Christ!” He lost his balance and knocked over the little tree with his left elbow. The ceramic pot cracked, soil exploded across wood, and the air filled with the scent of damp gardens.
I propped the tree back in place on
the desk. “Are you all right?”
Michael stepped backward. “I . . . I don’t know what to make of it. Is . . . is it real? Is this truly happening?”
“Yes, it is. Can you believe it?” I leaned my weight against the counter. “How can we convince your ex-wife to allow me to take Janie to meet this woman?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know if you can. But we’ve got to show her this. She’ll faint dead away. Oh, Jesus!”
“Michael, tell me honestly—look me in the eye—”
He did as I asked, his lips and chin shaking.
“Did you instruct anyone in Kansas to write this letter to me?”
“No.”
“Swear to me that you’re not behind this. Swear to God.”
“I didn’t even know you contacted anyone in Kansas. When did you do this? How did you do this?”
“I wrote to the postmaster of Friendly the night that I stayed in the house with Janie. This is the idea I was telling you about.” I laid a hand upon the blue paper. “I genuinely didn’t believe anything would ever come of it. I was convinced I would need to put aside my investigation into Janie’s stories forever.”
“What is it?” asked Michael’s mother from the staircase. She scuttled down the steps with her hands swishing across the banisters. “What’s happening with Janie?”
“Read this.” Michael grabbed the letter and shoved it at his mother.
She tucked her chin against her chest and eyed the paper as though it might be laced with arsenic. “What is it?”
“A woman claiming to be Violet Sunday’s sister wrote to Miss Lind.” He uncurled his mother’s right fingers and crammed the letter into her hand. “Read it, please. This verifies that I’m not a lunatic for believing in Janie all these years.”
Mrs. O’Daire tugged a pair of reading glasses out of her apron pocket and slipped them over her nose and ears. Michael backed away and covered his mouth again. His left hip whacked the front desk with a jolting thump, but he didn’t flinch from the pain.
I gripped the edge of the countertop and longed to propel time forward—to convince Janie’s mother to agree to put the child on a train to Kansas that very evening.
Mrs. O’Daire raised her face from the letter with enormous eyes. “Holy Mother of God.”
“How do we get Rebecca to allow Janie to travel to Kansas?” asked Michael. “How do we stop her from being so terrified and convince her that this isn’t some trick to make money?”
His mother removed her spectacles. “I’ll speak to her right now. And you’ll come with me, Miss Lind. We’ll both show her the letter and talk to her as a concerned grandmother and psychologist.”
Michael straightened his necktie. “I’m coming, too.”
“No!” snapped Mrs. O’Daire. “You absolutely cannot offer to take Janie out of Oregon. You need to stay home, both now and during the trip to Kansas.”
“But—”
“You must, Michael. For heaven’s sake . . .” Mrs. O’Daire glanced toward the staircase and lowered her voice, assumedly to avoid disturbing the guests, who sounded to be running bathwater upstairs. “If Rebecca’s greatest fear is that you’ll take Janie away, then you cannot be any part of this.”
“Join me for dinner later this evening, Mr. O’Daire.” I slid a hand across his desk. “I’d like to speak to you about—”
“No!” said his mother with a bark that made me jump. “You two mustn’t see each other anymore. The gossip around town is that you struck up an intimate relationship the last time you were here.”
“What?” Michael gaped. “Who said such a thing?”
“Everyone. You know how this town is, Michael. You cannot appear in public together. You cannot speak to each other, and you most certainly cannot stay here anymore, Miss Lind. We’ll tell Rebecca you came straight to my house with this letter, not his, and once we’ve made arrangements, we’ll find you lodging elsewhere.”
Michael rolled his eyes. “This is absurd. Miss Lind is going to great lengths to help Janie, and yet we’re all expected to treat her as though she’s a meddling, sex-crazed bitch.”
“Michael!” His mother whipped her face toward the staircase. “Mind your language. The guests!”
“No, I won’t mind my language. Goddamned busybodies are insulting both Miss Lind and her hard work, and I’m sick of it.”
“Let’s stop arguing and get back to making plans.” I picked up the envelope with that all-important Kansas postmark. “I’m only on vacation until January 4. If this journey to Friendly is to occur, then it must happen soon. To be honest, I was hoping to board a train for Kansas either tonight or tomorrow morning.”
Mrs. O’Daire sighed and thrust the letter back at me. “Neither of you are thinking clearly. Christmas is this upcoming Friday. If, by chance, Rebecca actually agrees to allow Janie to travel, then she most certainly won’t want the trip to interrupt the holidays.”
“Rebecca knows that Janie’s greatest wish is to go to Friendly,” said Michael. “If an immediate opportunity has arisen, thanks to Miss Lind and this Eleanor”—he tipped the envelope in my hand toward him—“Rook, is it?”
“Yes,” I said. “And Rook was the surname of the teacher Janie told me about when I asked who had taught her mathematics. Isn’t that interesting?”
“This isn’t one of your Sherlock Holmes novels, Michael,” said his mother, echoing my own words from my previous stay in Gordon Bay. “This isn’t fun and games.”
“You’re not comprehending the importance of this letter, Mom. Christ, don’t you understand what’s happening here?” He jabbed a finger against the envelope on the desk. “We now have evidence that this mystery woman actually existed, right down to the name of Violet’s sister and her astounding mathematical talents. Do you honestly believe that I’m just going to sit here quietly at home when we just broke through a barrier as monumental as this?”
“You’re not thinking rationally, though.”
“This isn’t rational.” He lifted the letter from my hand and held it in her face. “This one small piece of paper proves there’s life beyond death. My own child has proved it. Don’t you dare tell me I can’t be a part of this.” He rounded the front desk.
“Michael—”
“The one thing my daughter has ever wanted from this life was to visit the Sundays in Kansas. I’m going to make that dream of hers come true, even if it means I have to give up everything else on this earth.” He snatched his coat from the rack. “We’ll leave by tomorrow morning.”
“Don’t you dare kidnap that girl . . .”
“For God’s sake, Mom, I’m not going to kidnap my own daughter. How dare you accuse me of such a thing?” He hoisted my bags off the ground with arms stiff and tense. “Mind the hotel. Make sure those guests up there have towels and soap and whatever else they need. I’m going to Rebecca’s, and then Miss Lind and I will inquire about the purchase of train tickets.”
Mrs. O’Daire put a hand on her hip and shook her head. “You’re going to lose her.”
“You’re wrong.” He shoved the front door open with an elbow. “I already lost her, long ago. Now’s my chance to get her back.”
CHAPTER 20
Michael drove faster than was probably wise. He shoved his foot against the gas pedal, and the engine howled with his desperation to reach his daughter. I braced a hand against the car door to steel myself against each turn and prayed I’d done the right thing by writing to strangers in Kansas.
At the O’Daire residence, Michael jogged up the porch steps ahead of me and rattled the brass knocker. He couldn’t hold his body still; he shook out his hands and bobbed his legs.
“Be careful how you speak to her,” I warned when I approached his side. “This is going to require the delicacy of a surgeon.”
“I know.” He pulled a handkerchief from a pocket and wiped sweat from his forehead, even though the air out there remained below freezing.
Footsteps approached us from insid
e the house. Michael drew a short breath, and Tillie opened the door.
“Oh!” Her shoulders jerked. “What are you both doing here?”
“We have proof, Tillie.” Michael wrestled the letter from his breast pocket. “Violet Sunday was as real as you and I.”
Tillie glanced at me, her forehead crinkling. “I don’t . . . I don’t understand.”
“A woman named Eleanor Sunday Rook answered an inquiry I made to Friendly,” I said. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but, yes”—I tapped the letter—“she, indeed, verified that a young, unknown mathematician named Violet Sunday existed. She claims to have been Violet’s sister.”
Michael edged his way inside the house. “Janie! Come here. I’ve got an early Christmas present for you.”
“Please, do this carefully,” I warned again.
“Janie!” he called, and two pairs of footsteps hurried down the staircase.
Rebecca stepped into view first, her eyes darting about between all three of us. She wore a small pearl comb in her strawberry blond waves, and for some reason the pretty little accessory made me worry all the more about knocking askew the normalcy of her life. From the look of her, she took great pains to keep everything neat and proper and sensible.
“What is she doing here?” she asked when she spotted me, and she pulled her button-down sweater more firmly around her chest. “What is all of this about, Michael?”
“Hello, Daddy,” said Janie from behind her mother. She slid her left hand over the slick newel post and sprang off the last step.
“Janie!” Michael squatted down and put his arms out to his daughter, wiggling his fingers to urge her to approach him. “Come here. I have a Christmas present for you, baby.”
Rebecca hooked a hand around the girl’s right shoulder and kept her from moving. “I said, what is all of this about? Why are you both standing here in my house, unannounced?”
