I watched the locket chain slide over her clavicle and down her blouse. I thought of the hole built into the back of the doll and the roll of bills hid there. I knew I should relinquish it. I should pull the damned thing out and give it to her. A good man would do this, I thought, but something stopped me. I could not bring myself to say a thing about it. I was so selfish and in love with my future that I wished I had reburied it. I would not then have the burden of it on my person.
“Where you cried on Henry Muldon’s last epistle to his dear wife,” Cristiana tried again. I tried to empty out my mind. She leant onto the table, toward me, and peered into my face in a way that was persuasive. “If you truly have feelings,” she said. “There was something of import written there and, because o
