Chapter 4: What Richard Wrote
I put Lily to bed in the small guest room at the end of the hall — the one Margaret had assigned us, far from the main bedroom Richard and I had shared during every visit.
Lily was asleep before I finished pulling the blanket up.
I stood in the doorway for a moment, watching her breathe.
Then I went back downstairs.
The dining room was empty.
Dishes had been cleared.
The documents I had placed on the table were still there, stacked neatly, which meant someone had touched them.
Daniel was in the kitchen.
Alone.
Standing at the counter with a glass of water he wasn't drinking.
"She burned it," he said when he heard me come in.
I stopped.
"The letter.
She burned it the night of the funeral.
I didn't know until twenty minutes ago.
Someone just told me."
"Who told you?"
He set the glass down.
"Patricia."
I thought about Patricia pushing her chair back.
Standing up when Margaret told her to sit.
"Patricia knew about the letter?"
"She was there when Richard gave it to our mother.
He made Mom promise to deliver it to you after the service." Daniel finally looked at me.
"Patricia said Mom waited until everyone left.
Then she burned it in the fireplace in the study."
The kitchen was very quiet.
"What was in it?" I asked.
"I don't know.
I swear to you, I don't know.
But Patricia said Richard made one other copy." He paused.
"He gave it to his attorney.
Told him to hold it for sixty days after the funeral and then mail it to you directly if Mom hadn't delivered the original."
"Sixty days," I said.
"The funeral was fifty-six days ago."
I sat down at the kitchen table.
Richard had known.
He had known his mother well enough to build a backup.
He had known she might do exactly what she did, and he had planned for it anyway, quietly, the way he planned for everything, without telling me because he hadn't wanted me to carry the weight of it while he was still alive.
"She doesn't know about the copy," Daniel said.
"No," I said.
"She doesn't."
He pulled out the chair across from me and sat down.
For a long moment neither of us spoke.
"I didn't know she was going to do any of this," he said.
"The letter.
Tonight.
Lily." His voice dropped on the last word.
"I want you to know that."
"I believe you," I said.
And I did.
"What are you going to do?"
I thought about Lily upstairs.
About the chair knocked over on the dining room floor.
About Margaret's face when she said *were*.
"I'm going to wait four days," I said.
"And then I'm going to read my husband's letter."
Daniel nodded slowly.
Then the kitchen door opened and Margaret walked in, and the look on her face when she saw the two of us sitting together told me she had heard enough to know the conversation had already gone somewhere she couldn't reach.
"Daniel," she said.
"I need to speak with you."
"We're talking, Mom."
"Now, Daniel."
He looked at me.
I gave him a small nod.
He stood up, and as he passed his mother in the doorway, he said something to her in a voice too low for me to catch.
Whatever it was, she didn't respond.
She stood in the doorway after he left, looking at me across the kitchen.
"You think you've won something," she said.
"I think my daughter is asleep upstairs," I said.
"And I think I'd like you to leave us in peace for the rest of the night."
Her jaw tightened.
"This isn't over," she said.
"No," I agreed.
"It isn't."
She left.
I sat at the kitchen table until the house went quiet.
May you like
Four days, I told myself.
But I was wrong about how long I had.
