“You okay?” Thomas quietly asks.

My eyes burn. “Not really.”

Thomas, Moose, and I return to the car. The envelope in my hand hardly weighs more than a feather. “You drive?”

“No problem.”

I toss the keys to Thomas, load Moose into the back, and take a moment to kiss my dog’s soft forehead. He licks away the salty track that dribbled down the side of my nose. I slide into the passenger seat. Chris climbs onto Thomas’s lap, paws pressed to the window, head ticking back and forth. “She seems to like an adventure.”

Thomas starts the car. “She’s lived for twenty years in an apartment, only gone outside for trips to the vet. She’s finally discovered the truth. There’s a whole world out there.”

“You kept her safe,” I say. But it strikes me that the things we do to protect those we love are really for us. Thomas rolls down the driveway. In the side mirror I watch my childhood home grow smaller and smaller until it could fit on the tip of one finger. We reach the road, pull away, and it’s gone like a dandelion seed in the wind. Rows of pear trees, our trees, follow me, wave in the breeze. I open the window despite the chill and inhale, hold High River, our orchard, in my lungs then let it go.

The envelope from Dad rests on my thigh. I trace the veins that crisscross the paper. Someone once crumpled it into a ball. Why did Mom keep it?

Thomas asks, “Are you going to open it?”

“Are you going to keep our deal?” He digs his phone from a vest pocket, hands it over. The record app is open. I press play and listen to the conversation between Dad and me. If I hadn’t asked, would Thomas have used it? I erase the recording then turn over the envelope. The top-left corner reads: oregon department of human services state of oregon foster care. There’s a name handwritten in the center of the envelope: Mrs. Hana Young. No address—it must’ve been hand delivered. The envelope is open—the top slit long ago by Mom’s silver letter opener. I withdraw a sheet of lined paper instead of the expected official stationery, read aloud a short note written in perfect, looping cursive.

Dear Mrs. Young,

Bless you for taking little Sylvie Peters into your home. As we briefly discussed on the phone, her parents’ plane crash was a tragedy but I believe with your love and GOD’s guiding hand, Sylvie can have a good life. As also discussed, leave the past alone and I will smooth the way to a speedy adoption.

“Give justice to the weak and the fatherless; maintain the right of the afflicted and the destitute. Rescue the weak and the needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked.”

—Psalm 82:3-4.

May God bless your family,

Heidi

PS G is on board.

I read the letter aloud for Thomas then hold it out so he can verify that I didn’t skip anything. “What do you think?”