The letter was sent to Mrs. Haslam’s, as the letter writer knew that I couldn’t have kept up with the rent on the house on my wages alone. He was right. Mr. Cleneay had helped Bill and me out when he could, but his and Charlotte’s family continued to grow and he needed to care for them first. The butcher still set aside what he could for Bill and me from his shops—he and his brothers had two by then, and now they have three. I’d kept the yellow-and-white gingham curtains from the kitchen and sold or pawned the rest, except for Bill’s books, which had grown in numbers thanks to Mr. Watkin. By the time Bill was ten and eight, he owned more books than most men in Cincinnati have read. He has even more these days.

When Mrs. Haslam showed me the envelope, she gave me a sideway look. I took it from her hand, and I recognized the pie wedge of the “A” and the sideway tines of the “F” of my name. Instead of running off—she still lived in fear that the odors of the kitchen would seep into the fabric of her dresses—she stood there and stared at me some more. I placed the envelope in my apron pocket and returned my attention to that day’s pot of soup.

Don’t you want to know whom it’s from? Mrs. Haslam asked, her head a child’s balloon bouncing up and down on its string. She, assuming that I would want to know, said the letter was from Mr. Hearn, that Irishman boarder who became a newspaperman. You remember him, Alethea.

It wasn’t a question, and the tone of her voice—as if I’d stolen sugar from her pantry—made me think that she knew more about the goings-on in her kitchen than she had ever let on.

Mr. Hearn sent it to you from somewhere foreign. The name looks French to me, she added, sniffing the kitchen air.

I made certain that my face gave her nothing. I’d watched Molly do it, but it was Aunt Sweetie who taught me how and why. Aunt Sweetie called it putting on your mask. When you wear one, they can’t see you or what’s in you, she told me. Hers was a smile. Molly’s was made up of straight lines, her eyebrows flat, her lips pulled thinner than they already were. Mine was a child’s wide-opened eyes, as if the whole world was new to me, as if all that was being said to me was new as well.

Alethea, you don’t have anything to say about any of this? Mrs. Haslam asked.

I made sure that my words gave her even less. I said not a one of them, shaking my head from side to side instead.