Chapter 21 of 23The Second Chance

Her signature was the last thing missing from the estate inventory, and until it was on the page, Beatrice Cole could not buy a single object out of Elspeth Finch's studio. Genevieve Martel knew what her hesitation was costing her. So she spent Saturday morning on the one job that asked nothing of her: taking apart Elspeth's antique sewing table at 12 Elm Street.

Seneca Quay had turned gold and gray overnight. Fog lay on the lake at the end of the street, and wet leaves collected along the curbs faster than anyone could rake them. Genna worked from the top down: machine head out of its well, finish wiped, treadle irons brushed, the drawers pulled free and set on the felt mat.

That was where she stopped. The upper drawer's bottom board did not sit flush with its runners. The gap was narrow, no wider than a fingernail. Genna noticed, because she had spent her working life looking at the undersides of things. She slid a steel rule along the seam and felt the small resistance of a panel fitted on purpose, long after the factory was done with it. The board lifted out, and beneath it lay a cavity just deep enough for an envelope.

Inside was one letter, cream with age, folded once and pressed flat by the weight of the drawer above it. Genna brought the lamp closer to the felt. Flag stamp. Postmark, Oracle, Arizona. The date on the cancellation was five years old.

She had spent Friday inside a post office record from that same town: a registered parcel mailed in cash, a box registered to a J. Fisher. Now a letter had come back the other way, from the same small desert post office, to this house. She unfolded it.

*Dear Elspeth,*

*I don't expect an answer and I won't write again. I only wanted you to know that the second chance you gave me took. I have a job and a porch and a dog that doesn't listen. I don't dream about the water anymore. Whatever you told yourself you were doing, you were right to do it. If that's worth anything to you, take it.*

*J.*

The handwriting was a man's, upright and unhurried, the letters formed by somebody taught penmanship by a nun and never quite forgiven her for it. The envelope had no return address. She held the postmark against the note in her own file, and the two matched: same town, same post office, same initial on the box and on the signature.

Ink and paper and a cancellation stamp, all of them older than the story Seneca Quay had spent repeating about Julian Croft. A man had signed his own initial on a page, and Elspeth had hidden it under a bottom board where only somebody who took furniture apart would find it. Genna folded the letter and slid it into the pocket of her cardigan.

A knock came at the side door with a voice attached. "Genna? It's Mabel."

Mabel Henderson came in with her coat still on and a warm pan in a Wegmans bag.

"You didn't have to," Genna said.

"I did. I was at the Wegmans in Geneva this morning and I have too much butter and one thing led to another." She set the pan on the ironing board and looked at the table. "Elspeth wouldn't let anybody touch that treadle. Said a machine that old had opinions."

"It is hers."

Genna sorted drawer hardware into a dish.

"You've got the look, though. The one she used to get, like you're reading something nobody else can see." Mabel picked up her bag. "Whatever it is, tell me before you tell the mayor."

"I will."

"Good. Eat the cake while it's warm."

Genna waited until Mabel's steps crossed the porch, then dialed Chen's Hardware.

"Chen's."

"It's Genna."

"Well. What's happened?"

"I found a letter. It was in Elspeth's sewing table, under the bottom board of the upper drawer."

The register drawer rolled shut on his end.

"A letter from who?"

"It's signed with a J. The postmark is Oracle, Arizona."

"Same town as the box."

"Same post office. And the envelope came here, to Elspeth, to this address."

Something tapped on his counter.

"How old is the postmark?"

"Five years."

A customer came in; he answered with one word.

"Forget the signature," David said. "Look at where she kept it. She had a bank in Waterloo and she chose the bottom of a drawer."

"Don't leave the house," he said. "I'll close up and walk over."

"You'll lose a Saturday."

"I've had worse Saturdays."

She had the kettle on when the knock came at the front door.

Franklin Croft stood on the step in a buttoned coat, smiling.

"Ms. Martel. Forgive the intrusion."

"Mayor Croft."

"I was coming into town anyway." He looked past her into the hall, where the studio door stood open on the table in pieces. "You've been busy."

"I'm settling an estate."

"So I hear. From everyone."

Her hand stayed on the door; the letter stayed folded in her pocket.

"I've heard your name all week, and not always spoken kindly."

"From whom?"

"Does it matter? People talk, and listening is the job."

"They tell me you've been asking about the night my nephew was lost."

"I've been asking about this house."

He looked down the street.

"Seneca Quay has one story about that night, Ms. Martel." He said her name slowly, and he had plainly said the rest of it before. "We've kept it a long time, because it holds. It holds the family. It holds Founder's Day. It holds the price of every house on this street."

"That's a heavy story."

"It is. And it does not survive being picked at."

A car went by at the end of the street and did not slow.

"Elspeth kept our memories," Franklin said. "She knew which ones you carry and which ones you set down."

"She also knew which ones were wrong."

He looked at the porch rail. "That is exactly the sentence I came here to ask you to stop saying."

"Is that a request?"

"It's neighborly advice."

He waited out the silence.

"Arthur Vance tells me your signature is the last thing holding up Elspeth's file. He's a careful man, and careful men are slow. Slow costs money."

"Beatrice's offer."

"That offer is generous and it will not stay on the table. Take it and go back to Philadelphia."

"And if I don't?"

"Then you'll find out what a small town does when it decides somebody won't listen." He straightened his cuffs. "Nobody will raise a voice at you. The bakery will run out of whatever you came in for."

The quiet sat between them.

"Elspeth left a great deal in that studio," he said. "Some of it she meant to give away, and some of it she couldn't bring herself to burn. Ask yourself which is which before you sign anything."

"I'll think about it," Genna said.

"I'm sure you will." He put his hand on the rail and stayed where he was. "And Ms. Martel. When you find whatever Elspeth hid, I'd like to hear it from you first. This town has had enough surprises."

Franklin Croft stayed on the step and waited. Genna kept her hand on the door. The letter was folded in her cardigan pocket, written by a man who signed himself with a single letter and mailed it from a desert town where a post office box had been registered in a name nobody in Seneca Quay had ever heard. What she said next would decide whether this town kept its story, and the mayor was still standing there, waiting for her to say it.