Then reality returned.
He was gone.
And I had lost him twice.
Once when we were seventeen.
And again at seventy.
Two weeks after his funeral, I was hanging laundry outside.
The wind was cold.
I was pinning a towel to the line when I heard tires on the gravel.
I looked up.
A black limousine was approaching.
I frowned.
It stopped directly in front of my trailer.
The rear door opened.
A tall man in a gray suit stepped out.
He carried a black briefcase.
Then he looked at me.
“Margaret?”
“Yes?”
“My name is Daniel Carter. I’m Thomas’s attorney.”
My stomach tightened.
He walked toward me.
“I have something for you.”
He held out a sealed envelope.
My name was written across the front.
Margaret.
In Thomas’s handwriting.
My hands started shaking.
“Why didn’t you give this to me at the funeral?”
“Because Thomas specifically instructed me not to.”
“Why?”
The attorney looked at me.
“Because he wanted to make sure his children could not interfere with what was inside.”
I stared at the envelope.
“What’s inside?”
He paused.
Then he said,
“Your husband wanted to make absolutely certain that you received exactly what you deserved.”
My heart sank.
