Chapter 3: The Second Page
The second page was shorter than the first.
Thomas's handwriting changed partway through — smaller, shakier, like he had written it on a different day, when he had less strength left.
I read it slowly.
*"Sarah, by the time you read this, I will be gone.
I want you to know that what I am leaving you is not a mistake and not an accident.
It is a decision I made with a clear mind and a full heart.
I am leaving you my house.
The address is at the bottom of this page.
There is a key taped to the inside back cover of the envelope.*
*"I have one request.
Go there before anyone else does.
There is something in the study — in the bottom drawer of the desk — that belongs to you.
Not to my estate.
Not to my daughter.
To you.
You will understand when you find it.*
*"I am sorry I could not explain everything in person.
I ran out of time.*
*"Thank you for sitting with me.
Thank you for the tea.
Thank you for waving back.*
*"— Thomas"*
I turned the envelope over.
The key was there, just as he said.
Small.
Brass.
Taped neatly to the inside cover with a strip of medical tape.
The nurse was watching me.
"Are you all right?" she asked.
"He left me his house," I said.
The words felt strange in my mouth.
She didn't look surprised.
"I know.
I witnessed the will.
He asked me to, about three weeks ago." She paused.
"He was very certain, Sarah.
He didn't waver for a second."
I looked at the key in my palm.
"Why didn't he just tell me?
When I was sitting with him — why didn't he say any of this out loud?"
She was quiet for a moment.
Then she said: "He told me he was afraid you'd refuse.
He said you were the kind of person who would say it was too much.
That you'd try to talk him out of it."
She was right.
I would have.
I folded the letter carefully and put it back in the envelope.
"The daughter," I said.
"What's her name?"
"Diane."
"What did she say when she found out?"
The nurse's expression shifted — just slightly.
"She didn't say much in the hospital.
She read the document, asked for a copy, and left." A beat.
"But she didn't look like someone who was going to let it go."
I drove to the address that afternoon.
The house was a small two-story on a quiet street with old oak trees lining the pavement.
White trim.
A front porch with two chairs still sitting side by side.
A garden that had been carefully tended and was only now beginning to go unattended.
I sat in my car for a long moment before I got out.
Inside, the house smelled like books and mild soap and something faintly sweet I couldn't name.
Everything was orderly.
Nothing was dusty.
He had lived here alone and he had kept it well.
I found the study at the end of the hall.
The desk was old, solid wood, the kind that lasts generations.
I opened the bottom drawer.
Inside was a manila folder.
On the front, in Thomas's handwriting, were two words.
*For Sarah.*
I opened it.
There were photographs.
A birth certificate.
A letter from a hospital dated thirty-one years ago.
And then a document I had to read three times before I understood what it meant.
My phone rang.
Unknown number.
I almost didn't answer.
But something made me pick up.
"Is this Sarah?" The voice was a woman's.
Controlled.
Cold.
"Yes."
"This is Diane.
May you like
We need to talk.
And I'd strongly suggest you don't do anything with that house until we do."
