Hannah took Ben’s wrist. They went. They would sit on the landing and try to hear. Rachel knew. She did not have the extra strength to stop the landing.
Daniel stood in the hall in his navy shirt.
“I can’t open it with them on the stairs,” he said.
“I can’t not know with it on my table,” she said.
They looked at each other. Twenty years of breakfast looked back.
“I didn’t cheat on you,” he said.
“That’s a very specific sentence.”
“It’s the sentence I have.”
“Then what’s the picture.”
“Something from before you. Something I should have thrown away and didn’t, or did and someone kept.”
“Someone who can find our door on Hannah’s birthday.”
“Yes.”
Rachel’s eyes filled and did not spill.
“Is there a child.”
Daniel’s mouth opened. The honest answer was I don’t know what the envelope claims. The honest answer was also I don’t think so, which is not the same as no.
“I don’t know what’s in the envelope,” he said.
“You know who sent it.”
He was quiet.
“I think I do,” he said. “If I’m right, it’s impossible the way I meant it. People don’t come back from the kind of gone I thought they were.”
Rachel put both hands on the console, on either side of the paper.
“I’m going to put the kids to bed. You’re going to stand here. You’re not going to open it until I’m in the room. You’re not going to hide it in a drawer. I am done with drawers I don’t know about.”
He nodded.
She went up. He heard her voice, muffled, the official mother voice: birthday rain check, nobody’s in trouble, go to your rooms. Hannah arguing. Ben not arguing. Doors.
Daniel looked at the envelope.
His name was not on the outside. Nothing readable was on the outside. Nothing readable was on the outside. There was none.
He did not lift the flap.
He thought of the rooftop jacket.
He thought of Hannah on the curb.