Chapter 7: The Letter That Arrived Before We Left
It came on a Tuesday, eleven days after I found the box.
I almost didn't open it that morning.
I was running late, Emily's lunch wasn't packed, my father needed his medication refilled and I had forgotten to call the pharmacy the day before.
The envelope sat on the kitchen counter while I did four things at once, and it was only when I finally sat down with my own coffee that I noticed the return address.
A law firm.
Not the one Daniel had used for his will.
A different one.
From the town where the farmhouse was.
My coffee went down slowly.
I opened the envelope.
The letter was two pages, formal and dense with legal language.
I read the first paragraph twice before the meaning settled.
Then I called my father's room.
"Dad.
Can you come to the kitchen?"
He appeared in the doorway two minutes later, still in his morning clothes, one hand on the wall for balance.
"Sit down," I said.
"I need to read you something."
He sat.
I read him the relevant parts.
A woman named Ruth Calloway had filed a claim against the farmhouse estate three weeks ago.
She was asserting that Daniel had promised her the property verbally, prior to his marriage to me.
The claim stated that Ruth Calloway had been in a relationship with Daniel for four years before we met, and that he had told her the farmhouse would go to her when his parents passed.
She was now contesting the trust arrangement that placed the property in Emily's name.
My father was very still.
"Did you know about her?" I asked.
"No," he said immediately.
"Daniel never mentioned anyone by that name."
"The claim says four years.
We met in 2010.
That would put this relationship ending sometime in 2009 or 2010."
My father said nothing.
"He might have told me about an ex-girlfriend at some point," I said carefully.
"He talked about relationships he'd had before.
But he never mentioned a promise about property.
He never mentioned this woman by name."
"This could be entirely fabricated," my father said.
"It could be." I set the letter down.
"Or it could be real and he just never told me about it.
Either way, there's a legal claim on Emily's inheritance now.
From someone I've never heard of."
My father picked up the letter and read it himself, more slowly than I had.
His jaw moved slightly the way it did when he was processing something difficult.
"They filed this three weeks ago," he said.
"The same week I found the box."
He looked up.
"You think she knew about the box?"
"I don't know what she knows.
I know the timing is strange."
My father set the letter down on the table between us.
"Sarah," he said.
"Whatever Daniel left in the farmhouse — if this woman knows something about it, or is trying to prevent you from getting there before she does—"
"I know," I said.
He didn't finish the sentence.
He didn't need to.
I called the law firm that handled Daniel's estate that morning and was told I would need to file a formal response within thirty days.
The attorney assigned to Daniel's estate, a calm and methodical woman named Patricia Howe, told me not to panic, that the claim had significant procedural problems, and that the absence of any written documentation on the alleged promise was a substantial obstacle for Ruth Calloway.
"Has she made any attempt to access the property?" I asked.
A brief pause.
"Not that we're aware of," Patricia said.
"But I'd recommend you document everything at the property thoroughly when you visit.
Photographs, inventory, condition of the structure.
If there are items inside that belong to the estate, we want a clear record."
I told her we were planning to go in nine days.
"Good," she said.
"Go soon."
I called Emily's school after that and arranged for her to leave two days earlier than the holiday break.
Then I called my employer and adjusted my leave.
That evening, I sat with my father after dinner while Emily did her homework at the kitchen table.
He was quiet for a long time.
Then he said, "Tell me more about what you know of her.
The name."
"I looked her up this afternoon," I said, keeping my voice low.
"There's not much.
She's in her late forties.
She lives about forty minutes from the farmhouse.
She's been in that area a long time."
"Near the farmhouse," my father said.
"Yes."
He was quiet again.
"Daniel visited that summer alone," I said.
"The summer before we knew."
My father looked at me carefully.
"You think he saw her."
"I don't know.
I think he might have.
I think there might be things about that trip I don't know yet."
My father reached across the table and covered my hand with his.
"Whatever happened before you," he said, "was before you.
What he did for you after — the box, the signs, the recording, the letter — that was not the behavior of a man who had something to hide."
"I know that," I said.
"Do you?"
I pressed my lips together.
"I'm working on it," I said.
That night, before I went to bed, I took the USB drive from the nightstand and listened to the recording again.
The whole eleven minutes.
His voice was exactly as it had been the first time.
Clear.
Present.
Right there.
*You are going to be okay.
I know you don't believe that right now.*
I lay in the dark holding the drive in my hand and I thought about the east room.
The loose board under the window.
What he had needed courage to show me and had run out of time to do.
May you like
Whatever Ruth Calloway wanted from that farmhouse, she had not been there yet.
I was going to get there first.
