Chapter 3 — The Second Letter

They locked Evelyn in her bedroom that night.

Diane took her shoes. Frank removed the window screen and nailed the frame shut. Daniel stood in the doorway as if supervising the confinement of a criminal.

"You'll stay here until you apologize to Clara," Frank said.

Evelyn sat on the edge of the bed, wrapped in a blanket.

Her wet clothes clung to the chair beside her. Bruises were already spreading across her shoulder and ribs.

"What happens after I apologize?"

"You'll sign the withdrawal form," Diane answered. "Then Clara can take the scholarship."

"The university has already flagged my file."

For the first time, alarm crossed Diane's face.

Daniel stepped forward.

"What did you do?"

"I told them the truth."

He closed the bedroom door behind him.

Frank and Diane remained in the hall with Clara, but Daniel lowered his voice as though this were a private conversation between two people in love.

"Do you understand what you're doing to your family?"

"My family tried to steal my identity."

"They're trying to protect Clara's future."

"By taking mine?"

"You don't need college the way she does."

Evelyn almost laughed.

Daniel had said those exact words in her first life.

Then he had spent decades praising Clara's intelligence while treating Evelyn's abandoned potential as proof that she had never possessed any.

He reached into his jacket and produced a document.

"If you sign this, your father won't report what happened at the quarry."

Evelyn scanned the page.

It was a voluntary withdrawal statement. Beneath it was an authorization allowing Daniel to communicate with the university on her behalf.

"You want me to confess to attacking Clara."

"It doesn't say that."

"It says my withdrawal is connected to a family incident for which I accept responsibility."

"That's only to protect everyone."

"Everyone except me."

Daniel exhaled impatiently.

"I am offering you a way out. If Frank goes to the sheriff, you could be arrested. Is one scholarship worth ruining your life?"

Evelyn looked at the fountain pen in his hand.

In the life she remembered, she had mistaken his threats for guidance. Every time he cornered her, he claimed he was saving her from something worse.

He had convinced her that obedience was safety.

Now she knew safety had never been part of the offer.

She took the pen.

Daniel smiled.

Then she snapped it in half.

Blue ink splattered across the withdrawal form and his white shirt.

His smile vanished.

"You'll regret that."

"Not as much as I regretted trusting you."

Daniel seized her chin.

The touch was not hard enough to leave a bruise. He had always been careful when he wanted to appear reasonable.

"You're frightened and confused," he said. "When you calm down, you'll remember who has always taken care of you."

Evelyn pulled his hand away.

"You have never taken care of me."

A crash sounded from the hallway.

Clara cried out.

Daniel flung open the door.

Clara was sitting on the floor beside a broken drinking glass. Blood ran from a shallow cut across her palm.

"I only wanted to bring Evelyn some water," she whispered.

Diane hurried to her.

"What did she do?"

Clara looked toward the bedroom, eyes shining with tears.

"She threw the glass at me."

Evelyn had not moved from the bed.

Daniel knew that. He had been standing less than three feet away from her.

She watched his face, waiting to see whether one undeniable fact might finally matter.

His jaw tightened.

"You should apologize," he told Evelyn.

She stared at him.

"You saw that I didn't touch the glass."

"Clara is bleeding."

"That wasn't my question."

He glanced back at Clara.

For a fraction of a second, uncertainty appeared in his eyes.

Clara pressed her injured hand to her chest.

"Please don't be angry with her, Daniel. She's only acting like this because she's afraid of losing you."

The uncertainty vanished.

Daniel turned coldly toward Evelyn.

"Tomorrow morning, you will sign."

He left with the others and locked the door again.

Evelyn waited until the house fell silent.

Then she removed the forged signature form from her bag and slid it beneath a loose floorboard.

She still had evidence.

She still had her identification.

And somewhere in Atlanta, her name remained attached to a future they could no longer erase.

At dawn, the sound of a vehicle woke her.

A car door closed.

Moments later, Frank began shouting downstairs.

Evelyn pressed her ear to the bedroom door.

"You have no business interfering with my family," her father said.

Samuel Brooks answered in a voice Evelyn had never heard him use in a classroom.

"When one of my students earns the highest academic scholarship in this county and someone attempts to steal it, it becomes my business."

Evelyn's heart leaped.

Heavy footsteps crossed the stairs.

The lock turned.

Mr. Brooks stood outside with a leather briefcase in one hand and a Bellwood sheriff's deputy behind him.

He was a lean man in his early fifties, usually dressed in rumpled shirts and unfashionable ties. This morning, his tie was crooked and his silver hair looked as if he had combed it with his fingers.

To Evelyn, he looked like freedom.

"The deputy explained to your father that you're an adult," Mr. Brooks said. "You cannot be detained in this house."

Frank glared from the bottom of the stairs.

"She's my daughter."

"Then perhaps you should start behaving like her father."

Diane gasped.

Mr. Brooks ignored her and handed Evelyn an envelope.

She opened it.

Inside was a newly certified copy of her Georgia State acceptance letter, confirmation of her scholarship, and a notice stating that her enrollment could not be changed without an in-person identity check.

Tears blurred the university seal.

"I thought Daniel destroyed it."

"He destroyed a piece of paper." Mr. Brooks's expression softened. "Not what you earned."

Evelyn held the letter with both hands.

In her first life, she had spent years dreaming about this envelope. Eventually, even the memory of it had faded beneath bills, laundry, and children who demanded everything she could give.

Now it was hers again.

Mr. Brooks lowered his voice.

"I also visited Blackstone Quarry."

Evelyn looked up.

"There were two sets of footprints on the bank," he said. "Yours ended where the bicycle went over. The second set came from the brush behind you."

"Did you photograph them?"

His mouth curved slightly.

"Every one."

Clara appeared in the hallway wearing a bandage around her palm.

Her face went pale.

Mr. Brooks looked at her, then at Daniel, who had emerged behind her.

"If Evelyn wants to file a complaint, she has evidence."

Daniel stiffened.

Clara began to cry.

Frank immediately moved in front of her.

"No one is filing anything against this family."

Evelyn could have handed over the forged form.

She could have demanded that the deputy question Clara.

She could have fought the entire battle that morning.

But Frank still controlled the house. Diane controlled the gossip in Bellwood. Daniel's family had money and influence throughout the county.

Winning one argument would not make Evelyn safe.

Leaving would.

"Not today," she said.

Clara's shoulders relaxed.

Daniel looked triumphant.

They thought she had surrendered.

Evelyn folded the acceptance letter and placed it inside her bag.

Mr. Brooks understood before anyone else did.

"What do you need?"

"A ride into town."

At the bank, Evelyn removed the money she had earned from alterations and summer work from the custodial account Frank controlled. She opened a new account in her name alone and rented a small safe-deposit box for her documents.

At the sheriff's office, she filed a dated statement about the quarry incident without immediately requesting charges. The photographs and her written account were sealed into the record.

At the post office, she redirected her mail to Mr. Brooks's address.

Every step closed another door behind Daniel.

By afternoon, Mr. Brooks had one final envelope for her.

Inside was a Greyhound ticket from Louisville to Atlanta.

The bus left in three days.

Evelyn pressed a hand over her mouth.

"I'll repay you."

"I know," he said. "That's why I'm not worried about it."

When she returned home, Clara and Daniel were sitting together on the porch.

Clara wore a white dress, and Daniel's arm rested behind her shoulders.

Their wedding was scheduled for Saturday—the same morning Evelyn's bus would leave Kentucky.

Clara rose with a bright smile.

"We've been waiting for you."

Evelyn stopped at the bottom of the steps.

"I heard you got another copy of your letter," Clara said. "I'm happy for you. Truly."

Daniel watched Evelyn carefully.

She could see suspicion beneath his calm expression.

Clara continued, "Since Daniel and I are getting married, I want you to be my maid of honor."

Evelyn said nothing.

Clara stepped closer.

"I know things have been difficult between us. But we're sisters. I want everyone in Bellwood to see that there are no hard feelings."

Evelyn understood the plan immediately.

They would dress her in something cheap and ugly, then parade her before the town as the bitter sister who had lost both Daniel and the scholarship dispute.

If she refused, they would call her jealous.

If she attended, they would humiliate her.

Daniel stood.

"This is Clara's way of forgiving you."

Evelyn looked from the man who had stolen her first life to the sister who had enjoyed the rewards.

In three days, they expected her to stand beside them and watch them begin the future they had taken from her.

They had no idea she would be halfway to Atlanta before the ceremony began.

Evelyn smiled.

"Of course I'll be there."