The first pages were ordinary.
Recipes.
Shopping lists.
Notes about customers.
Little observations about people Estelle knew.
Then, near the middle, the handwriting changed.
There were dates.
Names.
Memories.
And then I saw one name that made my entire body go still.
Margaret Calloway.
My mother’s name.
I read the line again.
Margaret Calloway.
My mother’s maiden name.
The entry was dated twenty-three years earlier.
Estelle had written:
Margaret came by the store today. She looked worried but refused to explain why. She bought a small toolbox for her husband and paid in cash. Before she left, she asked me to keep something for her. She said she might come back for it.
I stopped reading.
My mother had never mentioned Estelle.
Not once.
I turned the page.
Three pages later, there was another entry.
Margaret came back.
She was frightened this time.
She told me she had discovered something about the Calloway family finances that she did not understand. She said her husband had been moving money between accounts and that she was afraid someone would discover what he had done and blame her.
