My hands were shaking when I opened the wooden box.
There were no jewels inside.
No cash.
Not a key to Richard's mansion.
Just a folded card, an old photograph of the two of us and a small brass key.
Rebecca smiled.
“I told you.”
I ignored her and opened the letter.
The first line caused my throat to close.
“Anna, I knew why you married me.”
I stopped reading.
Richard knew that.
The letter continued.
He wrote that, from the beginning, he understood that security had been part of the reason why I agreed to marry him. I was seventy-three years old, I was not a fool.
But then he wrote:
“What I cared about was why you stayed after you didn’t have to anymore.”
My eyes filled with tears.
During his last few weeks, Richard had offered to transfer money to my name.
I refused.
I told him his kids would think he had been waiting for him to die.
He had even asked him to leave the family home to them.
I never knew that I had told his lawyer that conversation.
Then I got to the last paragraph.
“My children will inherit my businesses, my investments and the house in which they grew up. You never tried to take those things away from them.”
Rebecca's smile disappeared.
