Chapter 17 - The Sealed Envelope
|
Eleanor carefully retrieved the yellow envelope from the bottom of the box and placed it gently on the center of the desk.
The paper was stiff, aged, and slightly discolored around the edges. Written across the front in my mother’s unmistakable handwriting was a single word:
Thomas.
The envelope was sealed with thick red wax bearing a simple, non-standard stamp.
Dad stared at his name on the envelope as if time itself had suddenly stopped. Twenty-seven years had passed since my mother had written that name, and seven years had passed since she lost her battle with cancer. Yet here, inside the locked study of the man who had ruined her family's trust, her voice was waiting for him.
“Why was this in Richard’s study?” I asked, my voice barely audible.
“Richard must have intercepted it before it could be delivered to you, Tom,” Eleanor suggested softly. “Or Margaret left it with him to give to you in the event of her death.”
Dad’s hand hovered over the envelope, his fingers trembling violently.
“I don't know if I can open this, Audrey,” Dad whispered, looking at me with raw fear in his hazel eyes. “What if... what if it changes everything I believed about your mother?”
I stepped closer to my father, wrapping my arm tightly around his shoulders.
“Mom loved you, Dad,” I said with complete conviction. “Every single day of her life, she loved you. Nothing written in this envelope will ever change that.”
May you like
Dad looked at me, a tear falling onto his cheek. He took a deep breath, picked up a silver letter opener from the desk tray, and slid the blade smoothly under the sealed flap of the envelope.
He pulled out a single sheet of heavy cream paper folded in thirds.
