I looked at the brass key.
The lawyer finally spoke.
“Richard purchased something six months before he became ill.”
He placed a document in front of me.
It was the deed to a small house by the lake.
I recognized the address immediately.
Richard and I had once spent a weekend there.
I had stood on the porch and jokingly said,
“If I could choose anywhere to grow old, I’d choose somewhere exactly like this.”
He had remembered.
The house was mine.
Paid for completely.
Then the lawyer turned another page.
There was also a trust—not the enormous fortune everyone had expected me to fight for, but enough that I would never again have to fear losing my home or choosing between rent and groceries.
Rebecca stared at me.
“So she still gets money?”
The lawyer looked at her.
“Your father’s words
were very clear.”
Then he read the final sentence of Richard’s letter aloud.
“She came into my life looking for security. She gave me something money had never been able to buy. Make sure she never has to be afraid again.”
That was when I started crying.
Not because I had inherited something.
Because Richard had known the ugliest truth about how our relationship began…
