My parents sold their house.
Not because they were bankrupt.
Because they could no longer live in a town where the Moore name meant fraud.
My father wrote once a month.
Short letters.
No pressure.
No guilt.
Mostly facts.
Your mother started volunteering at the veterans’ center.
I am meeting with the restitution attorney Tuesday.
I told Pastor Jim the truth when he asked.
I found another letter from you in the garage.
I did not always answer.
When I did, my replies were shorter.
Received.
Thank you for sending.
Please route financial matters through counsel.
It was not warm.
But it was honest.
Warmth can come later.
Or not.
Honesty had to come first.
My mother wrote differently.
Longer.
Messier.
She sent memories and then corrected herself when they sounded like excuses.
I almost said we did our best, but that is not true. We did what was easiest.
I almost wrote that Grant fooled us completely, but that is not true either. There were moments I knew.
I found your old Navy sweatshirt. I used to think keeping it meant I still loved you. Now I understand love would have been calling you.
Those letters hurt.
But they did not poison me.
There is a difference.
On the third anniversary of Grant’s conviction, I drove to the Oregon coast.
Not to the old house.
That was gone to me.
Instead, I went to the public beach below the bluff, where Grandpa used to take us at low tide.
The wind was hard.
The water dark.
Ranger ran in circles like an idiot and nearly fought a piece of kelp.
I carried the box of letters down to the sand.
read more in next page
