With trembling hands, Inga withdrew the seven letters from the envelope. She removed the first one, looked down at it, and a bewildered look crossed her face. From where I sat, I could see Max’s tiny handwriting. She took out a second and a third, casting a quick glance at the top of each, then continued to the next until she had briefly looked at each one. She inhaled deeply and spoke to Edie, “They’re all addressed to Lili, not to you.”

“Well, I’m Lili,” Edie said. “I was Lili, anyway.”

Henry’s lips parted in amazement. “Seven letters to his character. Seven,” he said. “There are seven sightings of Lili early in the film; each time she’s different. Did you ever ask him why he wrote to Lili, not to you?”

Edie’s eyes widened. “No,” she said, shaking her head. “They’re all different. I mean, it’s like he’s writing to different people.”

Henry shook his head. “The wily devil.”

“Seven incarnations,” I said.

“So that’s the big secret you strung me along with?” Linda barked at Edie. “The big scoop is that Blaustein wrote letters to someone who doesn’t even exist?”

Sonia looked at me and then at her mother. When she spoke, her voice was strangely hoarse. “He used to tell me that he heard them talking, his people. Even when the book is over, he said, they’re still there. It’s like he didn’t want the stories to end. He wanted to keep writing them. I think he hoped they would keep him alive.”

Henry left first. He hugged Inga, and I noticed that she withdrew quickly from his embrace. Inga shook Linda’s hand and reiterated her apology, upon which the woman grabbed her multiple outer layers and escaped through the door. Inga, Sonia, and Edie left together. “The three of us are going to talk at home,” Inga told me. “I have the room until tomorrow. You two stay on and have a drink.”