my back pocket and pulled out a few hundreds, handing them over.
Eudora took the money with a frown but didn’t say anything as they tucked into her pocket. She was far too proud for her own good sometimes and it had taken me ages of passing her the cash for her to get to this point. So, I’d take the looks and be grateful she was a good caretaker.
“Yes,” she said as she moved around the room, opening and closing drawers and cabinets as she muttered to herself. “It was a—I had it not too long ago. I was surprised to get something for you. Have you been using this address?” I blinked at the question, confusion sliding through me, but before I could answer she cried out. “Here it is!” She had yanked open one of the island drawers and now withdrew a long yellow envelope sealed at the top and bottom. “Sorry, I knew I put it away so one of the children wouldn’t get to it. Thought it might be important.”
I took the package with growing perplexity. “It came just the other day,” she repeated, gesturing to the envelope. “Addressed to you.”
“I can see that.” I took it from her as I felt its weight. It was rather light, nothing rolling around inside of it but what sounded like papers as I shook it a bit. It was unopened.
“There’s no return address,” I murmured as I scanned the face of it before flipping it over. I shouldn’t have been receiving any mail here. The lengths I’d gone to cover my tracks and Miranda’s—no one but Eudora knew of my involvement in her life. No one even knew she was mine.
Eudora shrugged. “Well, it’s got your name on it. I don’t open nothing that doesn’t have my name on it. It’s against the law, you know.”
I lifted my head and stared at her. Opening another person’s mail was by far one of the least offensive illegal actions I’d ever committed, but she merely knew me as a traveling salesman and single father. I forced a smile.
“Thanks for this, Dora,” I said lifting the envelope. She nodded as her eyes darted to the side, scanning the dishes piled in the sink. I sighed. “Is there anything else you need? Anything Miranda might need? Clothes? Food?”
She waved her hand at me. “Mirry is a good girl,” she replied. “She’d rather have her Daddy here than new clothes.”
My chest clenched at that statement. If I were any other man, I’d be able to give her that. For the first time since I was a young boy, I wished—if not for myself then for her—that I was normal. That I hadn’t gone into the military only to come out more scarred in many ways than I’d ever been as a child. Nightmares, PTSD, haunting memories of the things I’d witnessed, of shit I’d been a part of … not even my old man could have done the things I’d seen in my years of service—and he’d been a mean son of a bitch.
“I’ll see about finding a new job,” I said through stiff lips. “See you next time.” I tucked the envelope into my jacket and headed for the back door.
Eudora’s eyes tracked me as I reached the door, and just before I touched the handle, she called out. “She misses you, Mr. Bennington,” she said. “If you have the time to visit her so often, maybe you can take her in?”
I stopped, my chest tightening. Slowly, I turned back to the older woman and crossed my arms over my chest. “Has she been a handful?” I inquired, arching a brow. “Do you need some help?”
Eudora shook her head, her lips turning down in a frown. “No, no, ‘course it’s nothing like that,” she said quickly. “I just suppose—I think she’d be happier if she got to see you every day even if it was only for a little bit.”
There was nothing in this godforsaken world that I wanted more than my little girl with me every second of every day, but in my world—in the seedy, darkness of what I did—having a child as golden and sweet and so fucking innocent as Miranda was a weakness. I was a selfish bastard for wanting to be her father, and it was my own fault that we were trapped in this cycle. The mayhem of my work versus the innocence of her life.
“Sorry, ‘Dora,” I said. “It’s just not possible right now.”
Eudora’s face