{"id":18487,"date":"2026-09-22T18:42:48","date_gmt":"2026-09-22T11:42:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailystoryus.com\/?p=18487"},"modified":"2026-09-22T18:42:48","modified_gmt":"2026-09-22T11:42:48","slug":"part2-i-thought-my-elderly-husband-had-left-me-nothing-until-his-final-letter-revealed-the-family-he-had-been-building-all-along","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dailystoryus.com\/?p=18487","title":{"rendered":"PART2 I Thought My Elderly Husband Had Left Me Nothing\u2014Until His Final Letter Revealed the Family He Had Been Building All Along"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The lawyer held the cream-colored envelope between two fingers.<\/p>\n<p>For several seconds, I couldn\u2019t bring myself to take it.<\/p>\n<p>Everything inside Richard\u2019s house suddenly felt unfamiliar.<\/p>\n<p>The tall grandfather clock in the hallway was still ticking.<\/p>\n<p>His reading glasses were still sitting beside the newspaper in the study.<\/p>\n<p>A gray cardigan he had worn only three days before going into the hospital remained folded over the arm of his favorite chair.<\/p>\n<p>Five years of my life were everywhere.<\/p>\n<p>And yet the man standing in front of me had just told me I had inherited nothing.<\/p>\n<p>Not the house.<\/p>\n<p>Not the estate.<\/p>\n<p>Not even enough, apparently, to guarantee that Emily and I could remain beneath the roof we had called home.<\/p>\n<p>I finally took the envelope.<\/p>\n<p>My name was written across the front in Richard\u2019s handwriting.<\/p>\n<p>Anna.<\/p>\n<p>Just Anna.<\/p>\n<p>No formal wording.<\/p>\n<p>No instructions.<\/p>\n<p>My fingers began trembling.<\/p>\n<p>Richard\u2019s lawyer, Martin Hale, watched me quietly.<\/p>\n<p>I looked at him.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou said he knew I would fall for it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Martin\u2019s mouth tightened.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI chose those words badly.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou smiled when you said them.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>His expression changed.<\/p>\n<p>The confidence disappeared.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYes,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd I shouldn\u2019t have.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I felt anger rising beneath my grief.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat exactly did you think I fell for?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Martin looked toward the study door.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPerhaps you should read the letter first.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The word surprised even me.<\/p>\n<p>For five years I had rarely raised my voice in Richard\u2019s house.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI buried my husband yesterday,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMy daughter has spent the last week asking why Grandpa Richard isn\u2019t coming home.<\/p>\n<p>And now you\u2019re standing in my hallway telling me I was part of some trick.<\/p>\n<p>So before I open anything, I want you to tell me what you meant.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Martin took off his glasses.<\/p>\n<p>He suddenly looked older than I had noticed before.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI thought you married him because you needed security.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI did.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The answer came easily because it was true.<\/p>\n<p>I had promised myself years earlier that I would never rewrite the beginning of our marriage just because the ending had become tender.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI was about to lose my apartment,\u201d I continued.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMy daughter was sick.<\/p>\n<p>I had debt I couldn\u2019t pay.<\/p>\n<p>Richard offered me a home.<\/p>\n<p>I said yes.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Martin seemed almost startled by my honesty.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut I never lied to him about that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI know.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDid you?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He said nothing.<\/p>\n<p>That silence told me everything.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou thought I fooled him.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI wondered.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFor five years?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Martin lowered his eyes.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI knew Richard for thirty-eight.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat wasn\u2019t my question.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He nodded slowly.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThen yes.<\/p>\n<p>For longer than I should have.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It hurt more than I expected.<\/p>\n<p>Not because I cared what Martin Hale thought of me, but because I wondered how many other people had thought exactly the same thing.<\/p>\n<p>The young housekeeper marrying the wealthy old widower.<\/p>\n<p>People didn\u2019t need much imagination to finish that story for themselves.<\/p>\n<p>Martin gestured toward the envelope.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat I didn\u2019t understand,\u201d he said quietly, \u201cwas that Richard understood you better than any of us.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I opened it.<\/p>\n<p>Inside was a brass key attached to a faded blue ribbon.<\/p>\n<p>And a letter.<\/p>\n<p>I sat on the hallway bench because my knees suddenly felt weak.<\/p>\n<p>Richard\u2019s handwriting wandered slightly across the page, shakier than it had been when I\u2019d first met him.<\/p>\n<p>My dear Anna,<\/p>\n<p>If Martin has managed to make this sound mysterious and unpleasant, forgive him.<\/p>\n<p>Lawyers have a special talent for turning ordinary human feelings into something that sounds like a dispute over mineral rights.<\/p>\n<p>Despite myself, I laughed.<\/p>\n<p>Just once.<\/p>\n<p>And then I covered my mouth because hearing laughter in that silent house felt almost wrong.<\/p>\n<p>Martin looked embarrassed.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe wrote that months ago,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>I kept reading.<\/p>\n<p>You are probably angry.<\/p>\n<p>You are allowed to be.<\/p>\n<p>But before you decide that I have abandoned you and Emily, I need you to understand something.<\/p>\n<p>You never married me under false pretenses.<\/p>\n<p>You needed a home.<\/p>\n<p>I knew it.<\/p>\n<p>You needed safety for your daughter.<\/p>\n<p>I knew that too.<\/p>\n<p>And I was a lonely old man who had begun looking forward to the sound of your key in the kitchen door every morning.<\/p>\n<p>Neither of us entered that marriage pretending to be someone else.<\/p>\n<p>The rest came later.<\/p>\n<p>My vision blurred.<\/p>\n<p>I stopped reading.<\/p>\n<p>I remembered our wedding.<\/p>\n<p>There had been no grand ballroom.<\/p>\n<p>No society guests.<\/p>\n<p>No magazine photographs.<\/p>\n<p>We had married in the small garden behind the estate.<\/p>\n<p>Emily had been two years old and had insisted on carrying yellow daisies she\u2019d picked herself.<\/p>\n<p>Richard had worn a navy suit that was twenty years out of fashion.<\/p>\n<p>The night before the ceremony, I had gone to his study and told him I couldn\u2019t do it.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t love you the way a bride is supposed to love a husband,\u201d I\u2019d confessed.<\/p>\n<p>Richard had simply nodded.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI know.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThen why are we doing this?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBecause you need somewhere safe to raise your child,\u201d he said, \u201cand I would rather hear a child running down my hallways than spend another ten years listening to clocks.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I had cried.<\/p>\n<p>He had pretended not to notice.<\/p>\n<p>Now I looked down at his letter.<\/p>\n<p>I continued.<\/p>\n<p>You may also be expecting my estate.<\/p>\n<p>I cannot blame you for that.<\/p>\n<p>I never explained the arrangements, and that was my failure.<\/p>\n<p>Long before I met you, most of what people call \u201cmy fortune\u201d stopped belonging to me in any meaningful sense.<\/p>\n<p>It belongs to the Eleanor Harbor Trust.<\/p>\n<p>I froze.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019d heard the name Eleanor before.<\/p>\n<p>Richard\u2019s late wife.<\/p>\n<p>He rarely spoke about her, but there had been one photograph of her on the piano: a slender dark-haired woman standing beside a lake, laughing at something outside the frame.<\/p>\n<p>Richard had loved her for forty-one years.<\/p>\n<p>I looked at Martin.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe trust?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He nodded.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cKeep reading.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Eleanor and I never had children.<\/p>\n<p>What very few people know is that Eleanor spent part of her childhood in foster care.<\/p>\n<p>So did I.<\/p>\n<p>I stared at the page.<\/p>\n<p>Richard had told me he was an orphan.<\/p>\n<p>But not Eleanor.<\/p>\n<p>Years before she died, Eleanor asked me to promise that when we were both gone, what we had built would provide homes, education, and practical help to young people leaving foster care with nowhere to go.<\/p>\n<p>That promise became the Eleanor Harbor Trust.<\/p>\n<p>The house, the investments, the land, and most of the remaining assets belong to it.<\/p>\n<p>I could have changed those arrangements.<\/p>\n<p>I chose not to.<\/p>\n<p>Because before I met you, Anna, I made a promise to a woman I loved.<\/p>\n<p>After I met you, I finally understood why that promise mattered so much.<\/p>\n<p>My throat tightened.<\/p>\n<p>Suddenly the house around me looked different.<\/p>\n<p>Not smaller.<\/p>\n<p>Just temporary.<\/p>\n<p>As if its walls had always been waiting for another purpose.<\/p>\n<p>The letter continued.<\/p>\n<p>That is why you receive nothing from my estate.<\/p>\n<p>But please pay careful attention to those words.<\/p>\n<p>From my estate.<\/p>\n<p>I looked at the brass key.<\/p>\n<p>My heartbeat quickened.<\/p>\n<p>There is a place called Maple Cottage on the eastern boundary of the property.<\/p>\n<p>You have probably seen its chimney through the trees.<\/p>\n<p>I had.<\/p>\n<p>Hundreds of times.<\/p>\n<p>It stood beyond Richard\u2019s rose garden, partly hidden behind old maple trees.<\/p>\n<p>I had always assumed it belonged to a neighboring farm.<\/p>\n<p>Three years ago, I purchased it personally and transferred it into an independent family trust.<\/p>\n<p>It has never been part of my estate.<\/p>\n<p>The trust has two beneficiaries.<\/p>\n<p>Anna Bennett.<\/p>\n<p>And Emily Bennett.<\/p>\n<p>I stopped breathing.<\/p>\n<p>I read the sentence again.<\/p>\n<p>Then again.<\/p>\n<p>My hands began shaking so badly that the paper crackled.<\/p>\n<p>Martin sat beside me.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe cottage belongs to the trust,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou have lifetime residency rights.<\/p>\n<p>Emily becomes co-owner when she turns twenty-five, although there are safeguards if she needs housing earlier.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I stared at him.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cRichard bought us a house?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNot exactly.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I almost laughed through my tears.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat do you mean, not exactly?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou should see it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>That afternoon, Martin and I walked down the narrow path beyond the rose garden.<\/p>\n<p>September light filtered through the maple trees.<\/p>\n<p>The leaves had just begun turning orange around the edges.<\/p>\n<p>I had walked that path with Richard many times while pushing his wheelchair.<\/p>\n<p>But we\u2019d always turned back near the wooden bridge.<\/p>\n<p>Once, I\u2019d asked him what was beyond it.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNothing exciting,\u201d he\u2019d said.<\/p>\n<p>Now Martin crossed the bridge.<\/p>\n<p>I followed.<\/p>\n<p>Maple Cottage appeared gradually through the trees.<\/p>\n<p>It wasn\u2019t grand.<\/p>\n<p>That was the first thing I noticed.<\/p>\n<p>After years living in Richard\u2019s twenty-room estate, the cottage looked almost modest.<\/p>\n<p>Two stories.<\/p>\n<p>White siding.<\/p>\n<p>Green shutters.<\/p>\n<p>A covered porch.<\/p>\n<p>A small vegetable garden.<\/p>\n<p>And hanging from the porch beam was a wooden swing.<\/p>\n<p>I stopped at the gate.<\/p>\n<p>Emily would love that swing.<\/p>\n<p>The thought broke something inside me.<\/p>\n<p>Richard had known she would love it too.<\/p>\n<p>I unlocked the front door.<\/p>\n<p>The cottage smelled faintly of fresh wood and lemon polish.<\/p>\n<p>The living room had warm oak floors.<\/p>\n<p>The kitchen wasn\u2019t large, but sunlight filled it.<\/p>\n<p>Upstairs were three bedrooms.<\/p>\n<p>One had pale yellow walls and built-in bookshelves.<\/p>\n<p>On the windowsill sat a small wooden chess knight.<\/p>\n<p>I picked it up.<\/p>\n<p>Richard had carved chess pieces in his workshop.<\/p>\n<p>He had taught Emily how the knight moved by telling her it was the only piece \u201cclever enough to walk around corners.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Martin remained by the doorway.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe supervised the renovation himself.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMostly during the last eighteen months.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I turned toward him.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhy didn\u2019t he tell me?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBecause he believed you would refuse.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I knew immediately that Richard had been right.<\/p>\n<p>I would have told him it was too much.<\/p>\n<p>I would have insisted he shouldn\u2019t spend that kind of money on us.<\/p>\n<p>I probably would have argued until he gave me that infuriating patient smile and changed the subject.<\/p>\n<p>Martin walked downstairs with me.<\/p>\n<p>On the kitchen table was another envelope.<\/p>\n<p>This one contained documents from the trust.<\/p>\n<p>There was no fortune hidden inside them.<\/p>\n<p>No secret millions waiting in an account.<\/p>\n<p>Just something far more useful.<\/p>\n<p>The mortgage had been paid.<\/p>\n<p>Property taxes would be covered by the trust for ten years.<\/p>\n<p>There was a modest education fund for Emily.<\/p>\n<p>And there was enough set aside for basic maintenance.<\/p>\n<p>I sat at the kitchen table, staring at numbers that meant one simple thing.<\/p>\n<p>We had a home.<\/p>\n<p>No landlord could tell us to leave.<\/p>\n<p>No overdue rent notice could make my hands tremble.<\/p>\n<p>No illness or lost job could immediately put Emily and me on the street.<\/p>\n<p>Richard had understood exactly what frightened me most.<\/p>\n<p>Not poverty itself.<\/p>\n<p>Instability.<\/p>\n<p>The possibility of packing a child\u2019s belongings into plastic bags.<\/p>\n<p>I had done that too many times as a foster child.<\/p>\n<p>A toothbrush.<\/p>\n<p>Two shirts.<\/p>\n<p>A sweater.<\/p>\n<p>Whatever toys happened to fit.<\/p>\n<p>Then another family.<\/p>\n<p>Another room.<\/p>\n<p>Another promise that maybe this one would last.<\/p>\n<p>Richard had not left me a mansion.<\/p>\n<p>He had left me permanence.<\/p>\n<p>I lowered my head onto my hands and cried.<\/p>\n<p>Martin quietly walked outside.<\/p>\n<p>He gave me privacy.<\/p>\n<p>That was the first kind thing he had done all day.<\/p>\n<p>I found him on the porch fifteen minutes later.<\/p>\n<p>He was looking toward Richard\u2019s estate through the trees.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m sorry,\u201d he said before I could speak.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFor what?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFor deciding who you were without knowing you.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I leaned against the porch railing.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhy did you?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He thought about the question.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBecause I watched Richard become lonely after Eleanor died.<\/p>\n<p>People began appearing around him.<\/p>\n<p>Distant acquaintances.<\/p>\n<p>Investment opportunities.<\/p>\n<p>Charities I\u2019d never heard of.<\/p>\n<p>Everyone wanted something.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd then I appeared.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cA thirty-five-year-old housekeeper with a small child.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd debts.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He looked embarrassed.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cRichard mentioned that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOf course he did.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe wasn\u2019t mocking you.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI know.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Martin rubbed the bridge of his nose.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI thought he was vulnerable.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo you were protecting him.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat\u2019s what I told myself.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>There was something in his voice that made me look at him more closely.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou loved him.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Martin gave a quiet laugh.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe was impossible.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat\u2019s not an answer.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe gave me my first job after law school.<\/p>\n<p>Fired me twice.<\/p>\n<p>Hired me back both times.<\/p>\n<p>Paid for my mother\u2019s nursing care when I couldn\u2019t.<\/p>\n<p>Never allowed me to repay him.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>His eyes drifted toward the trees.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYes,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI loved him.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>For the first time that day, Martin stopped being Richard\u2019s lawyer in my mind.<\/p>\n<p>He became another person mourning him.<\/p>\n<p>We stood together quietly.<\/p>\n<p>After a while, he reached inside his briefcase.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere\u2019s more.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He handed me a thin folder.<\/p>\n<p>On the cover were three words.<\/p>\n<p>ELEANOR HARBOR TRUST.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI thought Richard created it with his wife.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe did.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Martin hesitated.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut the work began earlier than that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHow much earlier?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNearly forty years ago.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He opened the folder.<\/p>\n<p>Inside were photographs.<\/p>\n<p>Young adults standing outside small apartments.<\/p>\n<p>Graduation pictures.<\/p>\n<p>Trade-school certificates.<\/p>\n<p>Families holding keys to first homes.<\/p>\n<p>At the bottom of the stack was a photograph of a building I recognized immediately.<\/p>\n<p>My stomach tightened.<\/p>\n<p>It was a brick building with six narrow windows and a crooked basketball hoop beside the parking lot.<\/p>\n<p>St.<\/p>\n<p>Agnes Group Home.<\/p>\n<p>The place where I\u2019d spent five years of my childhood.<\/p>\n<p>I looked up sharply.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhy is this here?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Martin didn\u2019t answer.<\/p>\n<p>Instead, he handed me another document.<\/p>\n<p>It was a photocopy of a donation ledger.<\/p>\n<p>I scanned the dates.<\/p>\n<p>School supplies.<\/p>\n<p>Winter coats.<\/p>\n<p>Repairs.<\/p>\n<p>Vocational scholarships.<\/p>\n<p>Emergency transportation.<\/p>\n<p>And beside each donation was the same notation.<\/p>\n<p>Anonymous donor.<\/p>\n<p>My fingers moved down the page.<\/p>\n<p>Then stopped.<\/p>\n<p>August 1999.<\/p>\n<p>Vocational placement program.<\/p>\n<p>Two recipients.<\/p>\n<p>One of the names made the room tilt.<\/p>\n<p>DAVID BENNETT.<\/p>\n<p>My first husband.<\/p>\n<p>My David.<\/p>\n<p>I sat down.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Martin pulled out a chair opposite me.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cRichard\u2019s trust paid for the mechanic training program David attended when he was eighteen.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I could barely hear him.<\/p>\n<p>David had told me about that scholarship.<\/p>\n<p>We had been teenagers.<\/p>\n<p>He\u2019d come running into the group-home courtyard waving the acceptance letter over his head.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey\u2019re paying for the whole thing!\u201d he\u2019d shouted.<\/p>\n<p>I remembered laughing and jumping into his arms.<\/p>\n<p>That scholarship had changed everything.<\/p>\n<p>David got certified.<\/p>\n<p>He found work.<\/p>\n<p>We saved enough for our first apartment.<\/p>\n<p>Eventually we got married.<\/p>\n<p>Years later, Emily was born.<\/p>\n<p>And Richard\u2014<\/p>\n<p>Richard had been somewhere behind the first door opening for us.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDid Richard know?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I whispered.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNot then.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen did he find out?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Martin slid one final envelope across the table.<\/p>\n<p>Unlike the others, this one was old.<\/p>\n<p>The paper had yellowed slightly around the edges.<\/p>\n<p>There was handwriting on the front.<\/p>\n<p>Not Richard\u2019s.<\/p>\n<p>I recognized it instantly.<\/p>\n<p>My chest tightened so suddenly that I pressed one hand against it.<\/p>\n<p>I had not seen that handwriting in six years.<\/p>\n<p>David\u2019s handwriting.<\/p>\n<p>Written across the envelope were the words:<\/p>\n<p>To the person who gave me my first chance.<\/p>\n<p>My eyes filled with tears.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhere did you get this?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Martin\u2019s voice softened.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cRichard found it four years ago in the trust archives.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I touched the envelope but couldn\u2019t open it.<\/p>\n<p>Not yet.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat does it say?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019ve never read it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cRichard did?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I looked toward the little wooden chess knight on the windowsill.<\/p>\n<p>One question rose above all the others.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDid Richard know who I was when he hired me?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Martin slowly shook his head.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThen when did he realize?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Martin looked at David\u2019s letter.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat,\u201d he said, \u201cis what Richard wanted you to discover for yourself.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I sat in the quiet kitchen of the home Richard had secretly prepared for us, holding a letter my first husband had written to the foundation created by my second husband.<\/p>\n<p>Two men who had never met.<\/p>\n<p>Two men who had loved me in completely different chapters of my life.<\/p>\n<p>And somewhere inside that old envelope was the missing piece connecting them.<\/p>\n<p>For the first time since Richard\u2019s funeral, grief made room for something else.<\/p>\n<p>Not fear.<\/p>\n<p>Not anger.<\/p>\n<p>Wonder.<\/p>\n<p>I carefully slipped my finger beneath the flap.<\/p>\n<p>And began to open David\u2019s letter.<\/p>\n<p>**-END OF PART 2, \u2013PRESS NEX PART IN BOTTOM OF PAGE TO READ NEXT PART**<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The lawyer held the cream-colored envelope between two fingers. For several seconds, I couldn\u2019t bring myself to take it. 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