The Handwriting

The attic smelled like every attic Margot had ever been in: dust and cedar and the faint ghost of something floral that had given up being a smell decades ago.

Her mother had not been a sentimental woman. Margot had expected the attic to contain orderly boxes, neatly labeled, the detritus of a practical life organized for eventual disposal. Instead she found — barely controlled chaos. Hatboxes without hats. Shoes belonging to no particular decade. Three identical barometers.

And, in a shoebox behind the chimney stack, seven letters.

The envelopes were cream, the handwriting her mother's — she recognized it instantly, even after four months of trying not to think about it. Her mother's handwriting had been decisive and slightly too large, the kind of script that assumed it would be read and did not apologize for taking up space.

Each envelope bore the same address on the front and no return address. Each was sealed.

The name on the envelopes was: *Thomas Lemaire.*

Margot sat down on a dusty trunk and held the letters for a long time.

Her mother had been married to her father for thirty-eight years. Her mother had never, in Margot's memory, mentioned a Thomas Lemaire.

She opened her phone and searched the address.

It was on Rue des Acacias. Twelve minutes' walk from where she was sitting.

She looked at the letters again.

She thought about what her mother would have done, and then she thought about what her mother had actually done, which was seal these letters and put them in a shoebox and never speak of them.

Then she put the letters in her coat pocket and went downstairs to find her shoes.