PART 2: THE ENVELOPE UNDER THE FLOORBOARD
For three months after Derek left, my mother finally learned how to breathe again.
That sounds like an exaggeration.
It wasn’t.
The first few weeks were almost frightening because Ellen kept apologizing for everything.
She apologized when she used too much hot water.
She apologized when she left a book on the coffee table.
She apologized when she opened the refrigerator after midnight.
One morning, I found her standing in the kitchen holding a single piece of toast in her hand.
“Mom?”
She looked at me.
“I wasn’t sure if I was allowed to eat this.”
My stomach tightened.
I walked across the kitchen, took the toast from her hand, put it back on the plate, and kissed her forehead.
“You own the refrigerator.”
She smiled nervously.
“I know.”
“No, Mom.”
I opened the refrigerator door.
“You need to learn something.”
I took out an entire loaf of bread and placed it on the counter.
“This is yours.”
Then I opened the freezer.
“These steaks are yours.”
I pointed toward the fruit bowl.
“Those apples are yours.”
I opened the pantry.
“Everything in here is yours.”
She laughed softly.
“And if you want to eat the entire chocolate cake at three in the morning?”
I smiled.
“Then eat the cake.”
She laughed.
It was the first time I had heard that sound from her in years.
Not the polite laugh she had learned to use around Derek.
A real laugh.
A mother’s laugh.
For the first time since my father died, I felt like I had gotten her back.
But peace has a strange habit.
Sometimes it arrives just long enough to make you comfortable before revealing what was hiding underneath.
Three months after the eviction, I received a phone call at 6:17 in the morning.
I was still in Abu Dhabi.
The number belonged to my mother.
I answered immediately.
“Mom?”
There was silence.
Then I heard her breathing.
Fast.
Shallow.
Terrified.
“Iris?”
“Yes. I’m here.”
“I found something.”
My eyes opened completely.
“What?”
“I found something Derek left behind.”
I sat upright in bed.
“What did he leave?”
“I don’t know.”
Her voice dropped to a whisper.
“But I think your father knew about it.”
That sentence changed everything.
My father had been dead for eight years.
Whatever my mother had discovered had apparently survived him.
“What exactly did you find?”
“I was cleaning the upstairs hallway.”
“Mom, you don’t have to clean.”
“I wasn’t cleaning for anyone.”
She paused.
“I was cleaning because I wanted to.”
That made me smile.
Then she continued.
“I moved the old cedar cabinet.”
“The one Dad built?”
“Yes.”
My father had constructed that cabinet with his own hands when I was twelve.
He used leftover oak from a construction project and spent three weekends sanding every corner until it was smooth enough that Mom used to joke it could survive a nuclear blast.
“What about it?”
“There was something behind it.”
My smile disappeared.
“What?”
“A loose floorboard.”
I sat completely still.
“And underneath it…”
She stopped.
“Mom?”
“I found an envelope.”
“What kind?”
“Brown. Very old.”
“Is there a name on it?”
Another pause.
“Yours.”
My heartbeat accelerated.
“Open it.”
“I haven’t.”
“Why?”
“Because your father wrote something on the front.”
“What?”
She swallowed.
“Do not open this unless Iris is home.”
For several seconds, neither of us spoke.
Then I heard the unmistakable sound of my mother’s chair scraping across the floor.
“I’m going to put it back.”
“No.”
My voice came out sharper than I intended.
“Don’t touch it.”
“Iris—”
“Mom, listen to me. Put the envelope somewhere safe. Don’t throw anything away. Don’t call Derek. Don’t tell Melissa. And don’t tell anyone you found it.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t know what it is.”
I stared at the ceiling.
“But if Dad hid something for me, there was a reason.”
