“Why won’t you write?”

I underlined it. The people at Pine Breeze (Marion Finley?) had told him she was free to communicate with him. I had no way of knowing if this was true or not. Therefore, I did not know whether or not Leslie had ever written A in return—or, for that matter, whether she’d ever received the letter I had spread out before me on the burgundy tablecloth.

“I’ll tell her to stop sending the money.”

I circled “her” and stared at it. Her who? The same “her” who would not approve of my mother joining A wherever he was? Maybe. I had an idea who “she” might be, but I did not set the letter aside yet.

“There are other places . . . for girls with our problem.”

I circled “our” and sat back in my seat to stare at the three little letters. Our problem. He knew she was pregnant. I leaned forward again, and tapped the tip of my borrowed pen against the paper. Because I was not yet ready to move on, I recircled the word and stared at it some more, glaring as if it was hiding something from me. Our. His and hers. Their problem. A slight flush of indignation tugged at the edge of my attention, but the situation didn’t warrant it, so I forced it back. No sense in growing a grudge now.

I reviewed the first two lines again.

Pine Breeze officials read the incoming and outgoing mail. It was pretty safe to assume they knew she was pregnant too. This realization raised more questions than it answered, since Lulu—and, come to think of it, that newspaper article—had all agreed that no one knew she was expecting when she was checked in. Either my family was lying, or someone at Pine Breeze was helping hide a secret or two.

My eyes returned to A’s only threat—that he’d shut off the money. Not his money, her money. Another elusive her. Whoever she was, A was close enough to have some measure of say about where her cash went. I finally succumbed to my curiosity and reached for the next envelope in the folder, setting the damning letter aside.

This one was addressed on an old typewriter with its E’s set low. This one wasn’t to Leslie, it was regarding Leslie. Inside I found a canceled check from a popular southern bank, signed with a tall, thin, slanty signature that took me a minute to decipher and confirm.

Eliza Dufresne.

“Old Tatie,” I said under my breath. “The million-year-old matriarch. Where do you live, Tatie?” I flipped the envelope over and held it up to the small, primarily decorative lamp on the wall. There was no return address, but the postmark read “Macon, GA.” Ah ha.