Evelyn’s handwriting.
My chest tightened.
The attorney placed it in front of me.
I frowned.
“What is this?”
He looked at me carefully.
Then he repeated the words Evelyn had apparently given him months earlier.
“She told me this is what you truly wanted.”
My hands began to shake.
I lifted the lid.
The first thing inside was the old key Evelyn had given me on our wedding night.
Thomas’s key.
The one she had called a family key.
Beneath it sat a folded photograph.
I opened it.
It showed the grocery store parking lot on the afternoon we met. Evelyn stood beside her car beneath an umbrella, smiling at the camera. In the background, barely visible, was my pickup truck.
Someone had apparently taken the photograph for her.
On the back, Evelyn had written a date and one sentence.
The day I met the man who thought he needed money more than he needed a family.
My vision blurred.
Under the photograph were dozens of envelopes.
Each had a date written across the front.
I opened the oldest.
Inside was a receipt from the pharmacy and a handwritten note.
Michael carried my water today. He tried very hard to look like someone who did not need help.
The next envelope contained a grocery receipt.
Bought too much soup on purpose. He knew I was lying but accepted it anyway.
Another held a photograph of the repaired kitchen faucet.
He fixed it twice because the first repair bothered him even though I thought it looked fine.
I opened envelope after envelope.
There were records of our entire life together.
My certification acceptance letter.
A restaurant napkin from our first anniversary.
A picture of me asleep in an armchair with Evelyn’s blanket pulled over my chest.
A birthday card I had given her.
