Arthur touched the top notebook.
“My wife handled most of our charitable work.”
Grace glanced at the papers.
“You should probably look through those privately.”
Arthur nodded.
But as he lifted the first bundle, an envelope slipped onto the floor.
I picked it up.
There was a name on the front.
Grace Foster.
Grace went still.
Arthur stared.
“That isn’t my handwriting.”
Grace took the envelope.
The writing was soft and slanted.
Eleanor Whitmore.
The date in the corner was six years earlier.
Three months after our parents died.
Arthur looked genuinely shaken.
“Eleanor was alive then,” he whispered.
Grace turned the envelope over.
The seal had never been broken.
“Why would your wife write to me?”
“I don’t know.”
Arthur sat down slowly.
“I never knew she had.”
Grace looked at me, then Annie, then the unopened letter.
Nobody spoke.
Finally, she slid one finger beneath the edge of the envelope.
