Chapter 2: The Envelope on the Table
Part 2 ⬇️
Mom pulled me back inside and shut the door.
Her hands were shaking.
"Sit down," she said.
"Please."
"Mom, Claire just drove off in the middle of the night.
I'm not sitting down."
She looked at me the way she did when I was a kid and something had gone very wrong.
Like she was trying to figure out how much to say.
"She found the photo album," Mom finally said.
"The old one.
From before you were born."
I didn't understand.
"So?"
"There's a picture in there.
A young woman." Mom pressed her lips together.
"Claire recognized her."
"Recognized her as who?"
Mom sat down slowly, like her legs had given out.
"As her mother, sweetheart.
Her mother — before she changed her name and moved away."
The room went quiet.
I could hear the clock on the wall.
I could hear myself breathing.
"What are you saying?"
Mom looked up at me, and her eyes were wet.
"I'm saying your father knew Claire's mother a long time ago.
Before either of you were born." She stopped.
"And there's something about that time that nobody ever talked about.
Something your father made me promise never to bring up."
She reached into her robe pocket and set something on the table between us.
An old envelope.
My father's handwriting on the front.
"He wrote this years ago," she whispered.
"Said it was only to be opened if something like this ever happened."
---
What's inside that envelope — and what did Claire's mother never tell her?
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The truth is more painful than either of them expected.
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