The little jokes.
The arguments.
The quiet conversations.
Had all of it meant something different to him?
Had I been nothing more than a woman he rescued because he felt sorry for her?
The lawyer watched me silently.
Then he opened his briefcase.
“But there’s something else.”
He placed an old photograph on my kitchen table.
It was faded and slightly torn along one edge.
I picked it up.
A young man stood outside a brick building.
He was smiling.
In his arms was a little girl.
She couldn’t have been more than five years old.
Her hair was tangled.
Her dress was too large.
Her arms were wrapped tightly around the man’s neck.
I looked at the man’s face.
Even though he was decades younger, I knew him immediately.
Richard.
My eyes moved back to the little girl.
My heart stopped.
Because I knew her too.
I was looking at myself.
“What is this?” I whispered.
The lawyer leaned forward.
“Richard wanted you to see it after he was gone.”
I turned the photograph over.
There was a date written on the back.
And beneath it were four words in Richard’s handwriting.
She deserved a home.
I looked at the lawyer.
Interesting