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“Let me see it.” I crawl across the bed to look over Jake’s shoulder.
Within seconds we’re all crowding around Jake to try and get a better look.
He shoos us. “I can’t read this when you’re all in my dance space. Here, take this.” He hands a letter to me and then passes out one to each of us.
Paper rustles while we all read and try to make sense of it.
Piper frowns, flipping through some pages. “These are mostly about someone named Mia?”
Taylor’s mouth twists. “RyanandMia? Like a thrupple?”
Finley smacks her on the shoulder. “Ew, no. Would you stop with that? Dad didn’t have a second family. He had no time for another family or even a simple relationship, let alone a liaison involving multiple people.”
What if he did, though? How could he keep a secret like this, whatever this is, from us?
Jake holds up a hand. “Wait. This one has a picture.”
He passes it to Finley and then she hands it to me.
It’s a girl, no more than fourteen, holding a baton up in the air, wearing a shimmery, sequin-bedecked costume, and grinning at the camera. She’s standing in some kind of park, the background a little faded. We all take turns studying it.
“She’s young,” I say.
“Just a teenager,” Finley agrees.
I skim down the letter in my hand. It’s an update on this Mia person. The girl in the photo, maybe? How she loves to dance, how she’s doing in school, how . . . she used to hate dogs and had a deep fear of them but suddenly wants one and stops to pet every animal they see.
Why would someone be writing this to my dad? What does that even mean?
“Did he have another child?” I ask.
We glance uneasily at each other.
“Are any of them dated?” Jake asks.
I flip my page around, searching for a date. “Not mine.”
“Not mine either,” Piper says.
“They are postmarked, though,” Finley points out.
Piper is frowning at the photo. Her eyes lift to Jake. “What’s the postmark on the letter with this picture?”
He shuffles through the envelopes. “Nine years ago. But no return address.” With a frown, he holds his hand out. “Here, give them back.”
“Why?” Finley asks.
“We need to read through them, but I want to put them in date order.”
Taylor hands hers over, then stands and takes a few steps away, her arms crossing in front of her. “I don’t know if I can handle this right now. I don’t want to read them.”
Jake puts the letters back in their envelopes, then wraps one of the rubber bands around the pile. “I can do it.”
Finley watches him, concern puckering her brow. “Are you sure?”
He stares down at the stack in his hands. “Yes.” His head lifts to meet her gaze. “This is good. I need this. It gives me something to focus on. I’ll see what I can find, and I’ll tell you all as soon as anything becomes clear.”
She squeezes his shoulder. “Okay, Jakey.”
