I am enclosing enough money to help you begin again.
Please don’t contact him.
I’ll make sure he believes you’ve chosen another life.
Margaret Hart.
The room stopped breathing.
I looked toward my mother, still connected on speakerphone.
“You wrote this?”
A long silence.
Then…
“Yes.”
Rachel slowly opened another envelope.
Inside was a cashier’s check.
Never deposited.
Still intact.
One hundred thousand dollars.
“I never touched it,” Rachel whispered.
“I mailed it back.”
My father closed his eyes.
“She never told me.”
My mother finally spoke.
“I thought I was protecting you.”
“No.”
I could barely recognize my own voice.
“You were controlling my life.”
“You would have thrown everything away.”
“I would have chosen.”
The words echoed through the apartment.
“I had that right.”
My father quietly removed one final document from his coat pocket.
“I found this yesterday.”
It was an unopened envelope.
