Eighteen Years After Ray Abandoned Him on a Dirt Road, Thomas Found His Mother’s Letter

She passed me a blue spiral notebook.

A strip of masking tape ran across the cover, and on the tape Ray had printed TRUST in capital letters.

I opened it.

The ruled pages were packed with dates and check numbers in Ray’s slanting hand, running all the way through the summer of 2006.

“Why are you giving me this?” I asked.

Megan looked past me at the empty tennis courts.

“Because it’s my name on the wedding invitations, not on those checks.”