Chapter 10 - The Letter in the Flour Tin
Leona waited until we were inside. Then she took a dented flour tin from the top shelf of her pantry. Beneath old recipes lay three letters in Mom's handwriting, all addressed to me.
"Nina asked me to hold them until your twenty-fifth birthday," she said. "But after today, I think she would want you to know."
I hesitated before breaking the first seal. Mom had been dead eight years, yet seeing her handwriting still made my throat close.
She wrote about the summer house, which her grandparents built with money saved from a roadside fruit stand. She wanted the property to give me choices, not trap me into keeping it. Dad would always have a place to stay, but nobody could treat the house like a pile of cash that belonged to the loudest person in the family.
Then the letter changed.
Your father is a good man when he remembers to decide for himself. Clara has spent his whole life convincing him that love means agreeing with her. I hope he learns the difference before it costs him you.
I sat still for a long time.
Leona told me Mom had planned to separate from Dad during her last year of treatment. Not because she stopped loving him, but because Clara kept taking over medical appointments, opening mail, and pressuring her to make changes to the will. Dad always told Mom not to upset his mother. They went to counseling twice. He quit after Clara called him selfish for attending.
"Why did Mom stay?" I whispered.
"She was sick. She loved him. And she thought there would be more time."
The second letter listed a bank safe-deposit box. The third contained a warning about a document Clara had tried to get Mom to sign eight years earlier. It had been prepared by a man whose name I recognized immediately.
May you like
Harlan Beck.
I showed June the letter. She read it, looked up a date on her computer, and said, "Emily, this isn't the first time Beck has tried to transfer your mother's property."
