And Then I Found You by Patti Callahan Henry Read Free Book Online Page A

inside, and asked again—as he did almost every night—if she would come
     home with him because he couldn’t stay with her, leaving Dixie home alone to chew
     through the couch in the middle of the night. And she—as she did almost every night—told
     him about her early morning. They said goodnight, yawns stifled behind kisses.
    *   *   *
    She had dismissed the idea as frivolous, yet as Kate stood at her window, staring
     out over the river and watching the water move, going exactly where it meant to go,
     its destination already known, she knew too what her destination was.
    The idea to visit Jack Adams in Birmingham had crept into her mind and heart. It didn’t
     make any sense, but she was beyond sense now. Life, she believed from living in the
     wilderness, was tied together by hints, whispers, and unseen fabric-makers. She imagined
     someone far more knowing than she, sewing together a fragile web that she wouldn’t
     see it until time was done. She could ignore the whispers and threads, everyone could,
     and she often did, but this time she wouldn’t.
    If she didn’t go then, she wouldn’t go at all, and seeing Jack seemed the only cure
     for What is wrong with you?
    She understood the dangling corner thread of what was wrong: The first day of spring
     still possessed mystery not only for the myths, sacraments, and goddesses; not merely
     for the promise made at thirteen years old under a willow tree; but also because Kate
     and Jack’s lost daughter, Luna, had been born on that day thirteen years before.
    She had tried everything to outrun the pain of losing both Jack and her daughter:
     moving away; coming home; no dating; too much dating: anything to keep her mind away
     from the memory. People talked about heartbreak, but in Kate’s opinion, hearts don’t
     break, they merely ache and throb until you learn to ignore that same heart all together.
    She still hadn’t read the letter. The one on the side table. The one in the unopened
     envelope. The one from Jack Adams. She lifted it, staring at the handwriting and the
     return address, which hadn’t changed in the thirteen years the letters had been arriving.
     Her routine—to read the letter at sunset on the first day of spring—was purposefully
     broken the night before. She wanted something new. She wanted to really be with Rowan without intrusion or memory.
    Jack’s yearly letters, which were sent on their daughter’s birthday, allowed Kate
     to know Jack in his adult years. And yet, despite these thousands of words, they hadn’t
     spoken. Not once.
    Kate settled into her favorite oversized chair in the corner where the side table
     held not only Jack’s letter, but also a small lamp and her bowl of favorite collected
     feathers. It was still raining, slanted waterfalls hitting the wide panes of glass.
     A South Carolina spring came this way sometimes: damp with fury and chaos and then
     just as suddenly quiet. Kate turned the lamp on and slipped her finger under the envelope
     flap, ripping through the paper to withdraw the letter.
    Dear Katie,
    Happy Birthday to Luna.
    He always started the letter that way, that exact same way, with a happy birthday
     wish that neither of them could say directly—to their daughter or each other.
    This will be a short letter. I’m sorry, but if I don’t mail it today, it won’t make
     it to you by Luna’s birthday, so I’m keeping my promise and writing. There’s not much
     to say. Not much has changed. I want to tell you all the exciting things I’m doing—but
     they will sound repetitive and dull, as they aren’t much different than the year before
     or even the year before that.
    My work: same. The one new thing: I have opened an art studio. Not for my work of
     course, because I don’t have any, but for Alabama artists. It’s a small studio in
     the arts district of Southside. This is my excuse to indulge in my own addiction without
     buying everything I see.
    There’s a woman running