Why would she be writing me? Again?
I bend down and pick the letter up.
“Who’s R. Smith?”
I don’t know how long I’d been staring at the front of that envelope before Rhys came along and asked me about the person I hadn’t told anyone about. Not even Billie or the twins.
Damn his height. He could easily read the address over my shoulder.
“No one,” I answer and decide at the same time. I shove the letter into my back pocket and making my smile dazzling in a way that’s meant to distract. “Laundry’s here! Those sibs of mine might be useful after all.”
That was actually an understatement. The twins had taken over grocery shopping and all the laundry since I’d been in quarantine. And from what I could tell, they were keeping the house clean and themselves alive with minimum squabbling. They’d even made us pancakes yesterday and left them covered on the back house’s front step.
They’d been so great about everything, I hadn’t been left with much to do, save cooking and cleaning and looking for jobs in Pittsburgh. But I was only cooking for two now—a man with a normal appetite—not two vacuums disguised as teens. The back house was much smaller than the one I’d been cleaning since coming back to Guadalajara. And as for looking for jobs, well that wasn’t going so well. Surprisingly, not many Pittsburgh hospitals were interested in interviewing an ED nurse in April who didn’t actually plan to move to the city until September.
So that’s left me with a lot of time on my hands. Most of which I spend with Rhys.
Rhys’s eyes darken. “Is No One another man?”
I smile a little at that question.
And he glares. “You think my question is funny?”
“Yes,” I answer, voice frank as I take the laundry over to the bed to fold. “But I’m not making fun of you. My dad called you Mr. I Don’t Know.”
Rhys follows me. “You told your father about me?”
The hard accusatory tone from before is gone, replaced with something softer. And he starts folding laundry too.
“Told is a strong word. It was more like he guessed,” I answer. “He was a good doctor like that. He could always tell when something was going on with me, even when I didn’t volunteer the information. He just knew me, I guess.”
But did I know him? My eyes blur with tears. Not as well as I thought.
“Cynda?”
I look up to find Rhys regarding me with a somber expression from the other side of the bed. “Yes?”
“What’s going on with you?”
The question, simple as it is, nearly caves me. For a few moments, all I can do is wipe away tears and breathe. I feel like I’ve got a dam inside of me, trying not to burst.
But Rhys waits patiently until I get ahold of myself. Then he says, “You don’t have to tell me what this is all about if you don’t want to.”
I don’t want to. I don’t want to talk about this to anyone. But the dam suddenly breaks and the words come rushing out. “I guess…I guess my parents weren’t really my parents. I guess this R. Smith is. She’s my mom’s baby sister, and she basically abandoned me. But now she’s writing me to tell me the truth. She says it’s so that I don’t feel all alone. But now I feel more alone. A month ago I had parents. They were both dead, but I had them. Now all I have is this…this soap opera twist.”
I thought I was done, but I guess not yet. The world blurs again, and then my head is being pressed into Rhys’s chest.
And I can’t keep myself from basking in his comfort. “I’m sorry. It’s the coronavirus. Finding this out on top of being quarantined. It’s too much.”
“I think it would be too much under any circumstance,” he says, kissing the top of my head. “Do you want to open the letter?”
“No,” I answer. “I opened the first one and I want to be strong and brave, but this is…”
“Too much,” he finishes for me.
“Yeah,” I whisper against his chest.
“How about if I hold it for you, and when you’re ready, we’ll read it together.”
His offer makes me feel warm and grateful inside. But… “I think we’ve already established we shouldn’t mistake this mini-quarantine for more than it is. I don’t need any more hand holding. In fact, I’m not going to open this one.”
I remove the letter from my back pocket and toss it in the suitcase I left open beside the bed. As soon as I get back to the big house I’ll put it in the box with the other letter and all of the things I’d rather forget.
That decision made, I return to folding laundry.
But Rhys doesn’t join me this time. Instead, he asks, “Why did your father refer to me as Mr. I Don’t Know.”