Chapter 7: The Second Letter
Inside the envelope was a photograph.
Not a document.
Not a legal notice.
A photograph, printed on plain paper, slightly creased at one corner as though it had been folded and unfolded more than once.
It showed a restaurant I didn't recognize.
A booth near a window.
Daniel, in profile, leaning across the table.
Across from him was a woman I had never seen.
Her hand was over his on the table.
I looked at the photograph for a long time without speaking.
"When was this taken?" I asked.
"March," Harold said.
"Earlier this year."
"Who took it?"
"Brenda." He said it carefully, without apology.
"She saw them by accident.
She was meeting a friend at that restaurant.
She almost didn't tell me.
She came to me two weeks later because she said she couldn't carry it alone." He paused.
"She wanted to tell you directly.
I asked her to wait."
I set the photograph down on the desk.
"How long?" I asked.
"She doesn't know.
She only saw the once."
"Have you asked Daniel?"
"Yesterday," Harold said.
"When he came to ask me to reverse the will."
"And?"
Harold's hands moved to his lap.
"He told me it wasn't what it looked like."
Something in my chest went flat and quiet.
"That's what he said."
"Yes."
I looked at the photograph again.
Her hand over his.
His posture — not surprised, not pulling back.
Comfortable.
Easy.
The posture of someone who had done this before.
"Does Patricia know?" I asked.
"Not yet."
I nodded slowly.
The study felt smaller than it had when I arrived.
"I need to ask you something," I said.
"And I need you to answer honestly."
"Of course."
"Did you change the will because of the money — or because of this?"
Harold was quiet for a moment that lasted long enough to mean something.
"Both," he said.
"The money was reason enough.
But this made it urgent."
I picked up the photograph.
I looked at it one more time.
Then I placed it back in the envelope and folded the flap closed.
"I need some time," I said.
"Take all the time you need."
"I'm not going to fall apart," I said — and I was saying it to myself as much as to him.
"I need you to know that.
Whatever comes next, I'm not going to fall apart over this."
"I know that," Harold said.
"I have never once thought you would."
I stood up.
He stood up with me.
"Brenda would like to speak with you," he said.
"When you're ready.
Not before."
"Tell her I'll call her this week."
He walked me to the hallway.
Patricia appeared in the kitchen doorway, holding a tea tray she had clearly prepared some time ago and had been waiting to offer.
She looked at my face.
She set the tray down on the hall table.
And then, without a word, she crossed the hallway and put her arms around me.
I stood very still for a moment.
Then I let her.
"I'm sorry," she said quietly, into my shoulder.
"I should have said that a long time ago."
The tea went cold on the tray.
Neither of us moved for a while.
I drove home with the envelope in my bag and Daniel's car already in the driveway, and I sat outside for four minutes deciding what I was going to say.
May you like
Then I decided I wasn't going to say anything yet.
Because I needed to speak to one more person first — and that conversation was going to determine everything that came after.
