Chapter 8 - THE BROTHER WHO DISAPPEARED
Evan asked to meet at a coffee shop twenty minutes from my house.
Maya sat two tables away while I faced the brother-in-law who had vanished from our lives after Michael’s death.
Evan looked older than I remembered. Thinner too.
“I should have called sooner,” he said.
“Yes.”
He flinched.
I did not soften it.
“Did you help Diane?”
“I helped with paperwork.”
“What paperwork?”
“Trust forms. Court forms. Background information.”
My hands curled around the coffee cup.
“You helped her try to take my children.”
“I thought she was trying to protect them.”
“From me?”
He looked away.
“From a situation she said was getting worse.”
I nearly stood up.
Then Evan pulled an old black key from his pocket and placed it on the table.
“This opens Michael’s storage box.”
“What storage box?”
“At First Federal. He opened it before his last surgery.”
Michael had never told me about a safe-deposit box.
“Why do you have the key?”
“He gave it to me.”
“Why?”
Evan rubbed both hands over his face.
“Because he was afraid of our mother.”
The room seemed to tilt.
He told me Michael had confronted Diane months before his death after discovering she had been contacting his attorney behind his back. She wanted to be named co-trustee. Michael refused.
“He told me if anything happened to him, I was supposed to make sure Rachel got the box.” Evan’s voice cracked. “Then he died, Mom was falling apart, and I convinced myself he had been overreacting.”
“You kept this from me for two years.”
“I know.”
I took the key.
At the bank, Maya and I opened the box.
Inside were three envelopes, a flash drive, and a handwritten letter addressed to me.
My name was in Michael’s handwriting.
May you like
The first line made me cover my mouth.
Rachel, if you are reading this, my mother has become exactly who I was afraid she would become.
