Chapter 4

Anne turned toward Rudy.

"Calls from Garrett?"

Rudy nodded.

Lorna reached across the desk.

He moved the message pad out of reach.

"That's farm business," she said.

"Most of it."

He opened the pad on the deputy's side of the desk.

Phone numbers crowded the narrow pages.

Feed deliveries.

Farrier appointments.

Boarding questions.

And Garrett Boone.

Rudy pointed to a line in his own handwriting.

"That was last Christmas."

Anne read it aloud.

"Please let me tell him Merry Christmas."

From the kitchen, Cole looked toward his father.

"You called on Christmas?"

"Yes."

"I waited after supper."

Garrett put the birthday card down.

His fingers stayed on its edge.

Rudy turned another page.

There was a call from April.

Another from June.

Another beside a note about fence posts.

He had written the messages while answering the farm phone.

He had handed the pad to Lorna.

"What did she tell you afterward?" Anne asked.

"That Cole wouldn't talk."

"Did you ask Cole?"

Rudy looked toward the kitchen.

"No."

Del kept one hand flat on the table.

Cole had stopped rubbing his wrist.

He was watching the message pad.

Lorna pulled her chair closer to the desk.

"I was trying to keep him settled."

Anne asked a plain question.

"Did you tell him his father called?"

"He'd just lost his mother."

"Did you tell him?"

Lorna picked a thread from her cuff.

"Not every time."

Garrett took the smaller stack from his mailing envelope.

These envelopes had reached him.

Unlike the returned cards, they had been opened.

Anne put on reading glasses.

The first note was dated the spring after Marnie's death.

It said Cole didn't want Garrett to visit.

The second said he liked living on the farm.

The third asked Garrett to stop calling.

Each ended with Cole's name.

Garrett pointed to the earliest one.

"She told me he dictated it."

Lorna sat still.

"I thought those were his words."

Anne looked at the later notes.

Some were printed.

One was written by hand.

"Did you write these?" she asked Lorna.

"He was six."

"That wasn't my question."

Lorna looked toward the kitchen.

"He wouldn't know what to say."

Garrett's hand slipped off the desk.

Anne waited.

Then Lorna said,

"So I wrote it for him."

The deputy wrote that down.

Anne asked whether Cole had dictated any of it.

Lorna didn't answer.

Cole stood beside the kitchen chair.

"Can I see?"

Garrett looked at Anne.

She nodded toward the nearest note.

"Just that one."

Garrett crouched beside his son again.

He held the page low.

Cole followed one line with his finger.

He didn't finish reading.

"I didn't say that."

Garrett folded the page away.

"I believe you."

Cole stared at the fold.

"Did you think I did?"

Garrett's mouth opened, then closed.

He nodded once.

"For a while."

Cole stepped back.

Garrett didn't reach after him.

"I was wrong," he said.

"I should've kept coming."

Cole pressed his palms against his jeans.

Del shifted his chair aside.

The space between father and son stayed open.

Anne returned to Lorna.

"Did he ask you to send those replies?"

"He was better off without all that back and forth."

"Did he ask?"

"No."

Rudy set the message pad down.

He stepped away from Lorna's chair.

Anne made copies of the pages with his permission.

The originals stayed on the desk beside Garrett's letters.

She asked Del how he had found Garrett.

Del stood in the doorway.

"His number was in that pad."

Rudy nodded.

"I let Del use the office phone for feed orders."

Del looked at Lorna.

"She told the boy nobody called."

He tapped one notebook date.

"I saw Garrett's number that afternoon."

Two days earlier, Del had called it from his trailer.

Garrett had answered after his shift.

Anne wrote down the sequence.

The call messages showed Garrett had tried.

The returned mail showed what had come back.

Lorna's admission named who had written the replies.

None of it came from Cole guessing.

Garrett gathered the empty envelopes with shaking fingers.

Anne asked Lorna why she had kept the guardianship once Garrett had housing and steady work.

"I raised him."

"That doesn't answer why you blocked contact."

Lorna turned toward the window.

Rudy looked at a green folder on the office shelf.

He didn't touch it yet.

"The farm account's in that folder," he said.

Lorna swung back toward him.

"Leave that alone."

Rudy kept his voice low.

"When Cole leaves, she loses control of the farm money."