Free Tea and Primroses by Tess Thompson

another drawer. Declan pulled on the knob and a long, skinny drawer slid out. But this drawer did not hold desk supplies like the others. This drawer held a stack of papers.
    Declan set them on the desk. They were clasped with one of those large, black binder clips.
    It was a manuscript.
    The title, in Courier font from a vintage typewriter, said, “The Clockmaker and the Writer.” She’d typed it on her old typewriter , thought Sutton. Why would she do that? She hadn’t used that thing since Sutton was a small child. There was no address at the top or the usual information Constance typically had on her manuscripts.
    Sutton continued to stare at it, like it was a coiled snake. Patrick Waters, the clockmaker.
    “Why would this be hidden?”
    Declan shook his head. “Should we read it?”
    “I don’t know. Is it right? I mean, she clearly didn’t want anyone to read it or it wouldn’t be in here.”
    He lifted the title page. At the sight of the second page, he took in a sharp breath. “Sutton, it’s dedicated to you.”
    She took the page from his outstretched hand. To Sutton, my lottery. “Oh, Dec.”
    He reached for her hand. “Sutton, are you prepared?”
    “Prepared for what?”
    “That there might be secrets in here.”
    “Secrets or answers?”
    “Both.”
    She picked up the manuscript and headed toward the couch. “I’ll start first.” She unclasped the clip and placed the title-page facedown, patting it with the palm of her hand. “I’ll hand them off to you when I’m done.”
    He sat next to her. “You sure?”
    “I’m sure.”
     
    T HE B EGINNING
    What would you write if you knew no one would ever read it? Patrick asked me this once. He then, as he was prone to do during my writing tutelage, proceeded to answer his own question.
     Whatever is too dark to tell, too scandalous to utter, too callous to those you love—this is what you must write of. And the secrets you keep, the observations you stifle, these above all else must be let loose, arranged in neat sentences, because the truth of your writing is there in the murky, complex details. Always. To tell the truth, he added. It is your only job.
    He was like that, sure of himself. I dismissed it then, this question. Of course I would write the truth, I answered. And I do not care if everyone reads it. I want the world to read it. How bold I was! It was easy, this truth telling, I thought. Oh yes, my words came out unhindered, boldly splashed upon the blank page. But I was young then, and ambitious. I had no secrets.
    I am old now. I have secrets. So many secrets. They’re piled one on top of the other like the words I chase and wrangle. They want to suffocate me.
    I now know the answer to this question.
    “What would you write of if no one ever sees it?”
    I would write of Patrick.
    “I would write of you.”
    ***
    I must begin at my beginnings.
    There was the little town of Legley Bay, on the northwest Oregon coast, and my mother and father, and my best friend Louise and her mother, Aggie, and my high school sweetheart, Miller, and chasing words in my slanted attic room. This was my small, contained world. These were my loves. For twenty-four years this was all I knew.
    My professional writing career began in high school, when I convinced Mitchel Reed, owner of the Legley Bay Legend , to hire me to work for him after school. At first I simply assisted Mr. Reed by using my typing skills, honed on my mother’s manual typewriter I’d found years earlier collecting dust in the attic, abandoned when she’d married my father after attending secretarial school. But I quickly proved my writing talent when Mr. Reed’s one and only reporter abruptly quit to run off with the town’s married librarian. He needed coverage of Legley Bay’s Oyster Festival. “Could you handle it?” he asked me. I boldly accepted. “Now, it’s one of the biggest events of the year,” he said. “Don’t let me down.”
    I agreed and went away,