The walls were, of course, filled with hardback books, probably many of them first editions, though I doubted Opie cared much about the books. She wasn’t ever much of a reader, or a student. She didn’t have to get the grades to put her in the running for college scholarship money. She hadn’t had the ambition I’d been required to have to maintain a 4.0 in high school, finish college at the top of my class, and then jump into law school. I did drop out of law school a year and a half in, which was a humiliation she hadn’t had to face. And, other than the fact that Cliff had broken up with her and then started dating me, she’d probably had lots more fun than I did when we were younger. And we’d both ended up in pretty much the same place: Broken Rope, either working or living with our families. I tried not to dwell on the irony.
We each sat in one of the leather chairs as Joe perused the books on the shelves. He seemed much more interested in those than in our sharing of the letter.
“Ophelia, it’s a long complicated story of how we came upon the letter I want to read to you. And the hows and whys won’t make a lot of sense anyway, so would you mind if we just skipped over that part? Jake authenticated it and then researched how you were related. Can you just trust me on that?” Gram said.
Opie sent a quick but unmistakable glance of doubt in my direction but gave Gram a fully agreeable nod. “Of course, Miz.”
“Good. Well, here it is.”
Gram put on her reading glasses and then read the reproduced letter, written by Jake on parchment, just like the first letter, from Elizabeth to her mother, Alicia Zavon.
Opie was enthralled, literally on the edge of her seat through the entire reading. I don’t think she breathed or blinked until after Gram was done.
“I . . . I know who you mean. Alicia Zavon killed her husband, right?” she said when Gram refolded the letter.
“Yes, that’s the one, but there’s a little more,” Gram said.
“Okay,” Opie said, her eyes now fully bright and alert, still not blinking.
“Elizabeth did come to Broken Rope. She was too late, because the letter never reached Alicia.”
“Oh, my! So if the letter had arrived or if Elizabeth had arrived a little earlier, then maybe Alicia wouldn’t have killed her husband?”
“It’s possible, but then other things might not have occurred either,” Gram said. “And Elizabeth never went back to her family, so it seems that the lineage was all but forgotten. Jake is working to figure out if the rest of the family eventually came to Broken Rope or not, but one of Elizabeth’s abandoned daughters was named Ophelia. It seems that you are a part of Alicia’s family tree.”
Opie stood, gasped, and put her hand to her chest.
I forced myself not to roll my eyes.
“I’m related to Alicia Zavon and I’m named after one of her granddaughters!?” Opie said, almost breathless.
“It appears so,” Gram said.
“This . . . this . . . well, it changes everything, doesn’t it?” Opie said as she moved to the space behind her two chairs and began to pace.
“Well, I don’t know,” Gram said, “but it’s very interesting.”
“No, Miz, you don’t understand.” After a couple back and forth jaunts, Opie returned to the chair and sat. She leaned forward and rested her elbows on her knees as she continued, “I’ve always known I was somehow special to this town. I’ve always known! Now, this proves it.”
“Opie, I think you’ve always been special, too. I didn’t need this letter to prove it,” Gram said.