The House in the Orchard by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Epub3
Publisher: Tin House Books

If I’d had a pocket, I could have stuffed the letters

I wish I’d had a pocket in my dress, so that

If I were a true detective, inspired by pure curiosity, I would have found a way to smuggle those letters, or at least some of them, out of the cellar. I would be picking them apart now, in the privacy of my own room, and congratulating myself on having found evidence at last.

Clearly, I am not a true detective, because I didn’t want to take them, and I don’t want them now,† even though I cannot stop thinking about them.

There’s not a single sentence I can recall in its entirety. There are only words and phrases that make no sense—or almost no sense— at all.‡ Things like, “those darling hairs at the nape of your neck,” and “with my tongue,” and something about “your nakedness.” I keep telling myself that shoes have tongues and truth is often naked, yet I’m as sure as can be that my father was not discussing shoes or truth. As for “those darling hairs at the nape of your neck”

. . . why would any respectable person write such a thing, in any circumstances, ever?

I can accept that Pa loved her, but I’m not sure I can, or should, accept this. And what is “this,” anyway? Is there a word for it? Is it something that normal people would recognise and understand, or is it Pa’s own invention? Perhaps he was sick in the head; perhaps that’s why he died.

It is not Miss Greenaway’s fault if my father wrote horrible deranged insulting strange letters to her, and gave her a bracelet engraved in fancy lettering that reads: “Caritas Omnia Ignoscit” (whatever that means).

Or is it her fault?

She didn’t have to tie them up with ribbon and keep them safe in a drawer.

† Perhaps a tiny, microscopic, particle-sized portion of me does, but the rest of me does not.

‡ It would be better if they made no sense at all.

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