Heavenstone 02 - Secret Whispers

something nice there for you,” she added, and walked on to the dining room.
    Either she was a great actress or she really had accidentally taken a letter addressed to me, I thought as I walked to the office. Cassie was already there, standing behind Daddy’s desk.
    “Accidentally? Or she’s a great actress? Take a wild guess which it is,” she said.
    I ignored her and went to the mail stacked on the desk. I was only halfway into it before I found the letter. It was from Ethan.
    “She read it,” Cassie said. “She steamed it open and read it.”
    I turned the envelope over and looked at it carefully. The edge of the seal was slightly torn and when I brought it into more light, it did look as if some glue had been reapplied. But unless I had a forensics expert check the fingerprints on the letter inside, I really couldn’t be sure. I opened it, took out the letter,and sat behind the desk to read it. I saw from the date that it was nearly a week old.
    Dear Semantha,
    I was sorry to have missed your graduation. The fact is, I even missed my own. I was called home because my father had a heart attack. It was touch and go for the first few days, and then the doctors decided to operate and do a triple bypass. It went well, but I remained here during his first weeks of recuperation. Naturally, I put my own life on hold. He’s doing well now.
    I hope your graduation went well and your family enjoyed being there. I know how hard it was for you the last few days at Collier, and I wish I could have been there for you.
    Perhaps we’ll see each other again in the near future. Despite the craziness toward the end, I really did enjoy our time together. Let me know how you are doing.
    Love, Ethan
    He’d added his e-mail address at the bottom. I folded the letter and put it back into the envelope. How unexpected this was. When Ethan hadn’t shown up or called the day of my graduation, I had assumed that after all he had learned about my past and all of the commotion because of Ellie, he wanted no more to do with me. I had all but written him out of my life, fighting back any nice memories that tried to rise to the surface like bubbles in a pond. Even Lucille’s questions didn’t raise any new hope in me. I waited to hear Cassie say something sarcastic or nasty about Ethan’s letter, but she was silent.
    “Anything there for you?” Lucille asked when I entered the dining room. She was looking at the newspaper’s society page and sipping her coffee, sitting, I noted, in Daddy’s seat.
    “Yes.” I put the envelope in front of me on the table.
    “Oh. I do apologize. I’ve been rushing about these days and simply missed it.”
    Mrs. Dobson came in to bring me my juice and a bowl of my favorite cereal and fruit. Lucille waited for her to leave.
    “Well,” she said, nodding at the envelope, “did it bring you some good news at least?”
    “Sort of. It was from Ethan Hunter.”
    “The young man you were seeing?”
    “Yes. He explained why he didn’t attend my graduation. His father had a heart attack, and he had to go home to be with his mother.”
    “Did his father live?”
    “Yes, but he had to have a triple bypass.”
    “Well, then, that is good news,” she said, smiling. “I remember I told you to reserve your judgment about him. We’re all so impulsive when we’re young. We haven’t the patience to let things jell a bit. It’s nice that he wrote you. Is he going to call you?”
    “I don’t know,” I said, starting my breakfast. “He wants me to write to him first, I think. He added his e-mail address.”
    “I won’t tell you what to do, but he sounds very thoughtful and not like the sort who would waste his time,” she said. She snapped the paper and finished reading, occasionally announcing the namesshe read and explaining how she knew them. There didn’t seem to be a charity or entertainment affair to which she had not gone in her life. After she had her breakfast, she told me she had a number of things to do before meeting the governor’s wife. She also said that she and my father would have dinner out again tonight.
    “I do hate to see you all by yourself so much, Semantha,” she said as she rose to leave.
    “It’s all right.”
    “No, it’s not. I know what you’ve been through, and I worry you’re going to ruin all the progress you’ve made with your therapist. I promise I will try to devote more time to you as soon as I can. Perhaps you should send Ethan a quick note to