Disclaimer: Jericho is not mine.

"Come in!" The voice hidden behind the door adorned with a nameplate that read Rev. H. D. Lisinski called in answer to her knock.

Heather pushed it open and smiled at the pile of papers her father's desk was hidden under. "I'll never understand how you find anything in that," she commented as she did on most occasions when she stopped by his office.

"I make do, sweetie," he smiled back. "Are you headed out?"

"Yeah," she replied. "It's a long drive, and I want to stop by the Jenkins' on way out of town."

"You didn't have to come home for spring break, but I appreciate that you did," he told her standing to give her a kiss on the forehead.

"Where else would I go?"

"Probably nowhere that I would actually want to know about. Drive carefully," he commanded.

"I always do," she assured him.

"Tell Martha hello for me, and if you think about it, tell Jenna that her new books for her Sunday School class came in today."

"I'll tell her," she promised reaching out a hand to catch a folder that was sliding off the edge as her father brushed by it to sit back down.

"Nice save," he complimented.

She perused the papers as she straightened them back into the folder. "Is this the one that happened over by Jericho? The one where that boy was killed?" She asked tapping the newspaper clipping about a trial that was stapled to the front with her finger as she handed the folder over.

"Yes, sad business," he answered as he accepted it.

"Your next letter writing campaign?" She inquired. He nodded his head. "Do you think any of them will write back?"

"I never know until I try," he grinned up at her. "That's enough about what I'm up to; we've had all week for that. You've got a lot of driving to do, and I know you won't get away from Jenna nearly as quickly as you think you will. You're going to end up driving in the dark."

"Bye," she offered leaning over to kiss him on the top of the head in turn. "I love you."

"I love you, baby girl."

A Little More Than One Year Later

"We didn't want to rush you, honey. You don't need to do this now," her father's secretary meant well with her soft, soothing voice and her attempts to convince her to take more time before she tackled this project. The problem was that Heather needed to be doing something and sorting through the items from her father's office was the something that she had determined was next on her list. She needed to be busy, and she could only spend so much time hunkered down in the Jenkins' garage tinkering on Charlotte until people came by looking for her to express their condolences. If she were doing something a little more serious (like sorting through her father's things), then she wouldn't have to feel guilty if she let Mrs. Jenkins and Jenna tell people that she was in the middle of something and couldn't see them.

Jenna and her grandmother had insisted that she stay with them for the summer before she went back to finish her final year of college, and she wasn't sorry that she had accepted (despite the steady stream of visitors that came with the package). Everything from the house was in storage, and she needed to go through it and whittle down what she was keeping. One of the perils of growing up in a parsonage was that the house went with the job, and she just didn't have a place to keep everything until she felt more up to those kinds of decisions. Likewise, the contents of her father's office were in boxes that the church was graciously keeping for her, but she couldn't take advantage of that forever.

Supposedly everything important to ongoing projects had already been taken out, but she knew her father and his filing system (or lack thereof). If there was something that whoever had done the sorting (likely Mrs. Hicks) had missed, then it might as well get found now.

Her instincts that something would have been overlooked proved correct when she found the file of letters from a prison inmate. She remembered the newspaper clipping that was stapled to the front. One of them had written her father back. It was a private ministry of his - his prison letters. Mrs. Hicks had assured her that all of his correspondents had been informed, but this one had gotten missed somehow. She wasn't sure why she did it. She had been raised to believe that reading other people's letters was a violation of her privacy, but she found herself wanting to remember how good her father had been at people. She had not inherited that particular skill.

The man who had written back to her father had done so antagonistically at first, but the questions had poured out just the same. She wished that she could read her father's replies that had turned the sullen, almost taunting writer of that first letter into the calmer, still questioning, but obviously less angry (apparent even on paper) writer of the later ones. She hoped that the man hadn't thought that her father had abandoned him. It had been six weeks, and (judging from the dates on the letters) theirs had been an almost weekly exchange. She decided that she didn't need to hand this folder over to Mrs. Hicks. She would write the explanation letter herself.

Dear Mr. Cafferty,

I am writing to inform you that my father . . .

She was kind of shocked when she got the reply. She hadn't expected that, and she would have thought (if she had thought of such a thing) that if she did get one, it would have been a mere thank you for letting me know type of a thing. Instead, she got a sincere letter telling her that he was sorry to hear about her father and how much he appreciated her taking the time to make sure he didn't think that he had been forgotten. Then, he started talking about her dad and how much his letters had meant to him. He wanted her to know just how special her dad had been. She knew that, but it was always nice (especially in this context) to hear that someone else knew that as well. Before she even realized what she was doing, she found herself starting a letter back.

Dear Mr. Cafferty,

I know I'm not my father, and I couldn't hope to be as . . .

The letters kept coming and going even after she went back to school. He was fascinated (or claimed to be) by her stories about college, and they exchanged tips about fixing cars in between the asking of questions of the kind that he used to write to her dad. She knew she wasn't doing nearly as good of a job with them as he would have done, but she did her best. Sometimes, they ended up trying to figure out the answers together.

Dear Mitch,

You'll never guess where I just got offered a teaching position.

Dear Heather,

Are you serious?

Dear Mitch,

I think I'm going to like it here. I wasn't so sure about the whole small town thing, but . . .

Dear Heather,

I spent my entire life dreaming of getting out of Jericho. This wasn't really what . . .

Dear Mitch,

I survived my first week of teaching with most of my hair still attached to my head. There's something about knowing that you're all on your own with no one to turn to in that classroom . . .

Dear Heather,

I would tell you that you get the same sort of feeling the first time you get sent out on your first solo job, but you probably don't want to hear it.

Dear Mitch,

Have you thought about it at all?

Dear Heather,

When I first got here, I didn't really think I had any other options but to wait out my time and go back to Jonah when I got out. Now . . .

Dear Mitch,

You know that whatever you decide . . .

Dear Heather,

I do know that, and it means a lot.

When the bus stopped just outside of the city limits to disgorge the single passenger with his duffle bag, there was only one other person in sight. The petite brunette sitting on the tailgate of the well weathered pickup truck smiled brightly and started to hop down before something seemed to occur to her. Instead, she slid to her feet slowly and waited for him to come to her.

The bus continued on its way, and the man shifted his bag to the other hand as he made his way in her direction.

"Hi," she offered her smile faltering a bit as if she were no longer quite sure of herself. He read her hesitancy and offered her a somewhat unsure smile of his own. They just looked at each other for a few seconds before he offered her his hand.

"Mitchell Cafferty," he told her as his smile shifted from unsure to teasing.

"Heather Lisinski," she replied with a small laugh. "It's nice to actually meet you."