Then she smiled.
“Everything is confirmed.”
Grandma looked at me.
“Everything?”
“Everything.”
She laughed.
A real laugh.
The kind I hadn’t heard from her in years.
As we walked toward security, she stopped.
“Wait.”
I turned.
She reached into her purse.
For one terrifying second, I thought she had forgotten something.
Instead, she pulled out a small yellow envelope.
The same envelope Grandpa had left twelve years earlier.
She handed it to me.
“Keep this.”
I opened it.
Inside was a copy of the original note.
“Hazel, if the children ever pressure you for money or signatures, call Elias Grant.”
Underneath it, Grandma had written one sentence of her own.
“Sometimes the people who hurt you are the people you spent your whole life protecting.”
Then she added another line.
“But protecting yourself is not betrayal.”
I looked at her.
“Are you sure you want me to keep this?”
