Chapter 4 - THE LETTER I NEVER RECEIVED
The next morning, a courier brought a sealed envelope to my apartment.
Inside was a photocopy of a letter from a federal judicial selection committee.
My name appeared near the top.
The date was eighteen months earlier.
Someone had written across the bottom in my father's heavy blue handwriting.
Do not encourage this nonsense.
I called Mara before I did anything else.
She told me to leave the envelope untouched and photograph its contents.
Then she asked whether I knew who had sent it.
There was no return address.
I knew only that the letter had never reached me.
For a moment, old memories assembled themselves into a pattern.
Scholarship notices delayed.
Invitations that arrived after events.
A clerkship interview my mother insisted had been canceled.
I had overcome each obstacle without understanding who kept placing them there.
Now I wondered how many detours had been planned for me.
Mara reminded me that the immediate criminal matter remained Toby's injury and the alleged false statements.
“Your family history may explain their behavior,” she said.
“It isn't automatically evidence of another crime.”
I accepted the distinction.
It did not make the discovery painless.
That afternoon, my father called from a number I did not recognize.
“You've made your point,” he said.
I said nothing.
“Brenda is falling apart.”
“Toby's arm was broken.”
He exhaled sharply.
“Must you keep saying it that way?”
“How would you prefer I describe it?”
“You know what I mean.”
“No, Dad.”
His voice dropped.
“Valerie, important people are beginning to ask questions about us.”
“Then answer them truthfully.”
He laughed once, without humor.
“You really think your title makes you untouchable.”
“My title has nothing to do with this.”
“Everything has to do with it now.”
I ended the call.
Minutes later, Mara sent me a photograph from Ruth's old employment records.
It showed a teenage girl standing on my parents' porch, holding a school trophy.
The girl was me.
Across the back, in Ruth's handwriting, were five words.
She never knew we watched.
At the bottom was a date.
May you like
The day I had been accused of destroying Brenda's college acceptance letter.
