Chapter 13 - The Drawer on the Truck
Maya contacted the storage company before the scheduled pickup and secured a hold while ownership was verified.
Andrew and Tessa arrived with their paperwork and a copy of Nora's estate inventory.
The drawer sat on a rolling cart beside broken furniture and boxes of old lamps.
There was the little brass handle Andrew had polished with Emma when she was five.
And there was the keyhole.
"Is the lock intact?" Andrew asked.
The manager nodded.
"We haven't opened it. We were told it was empty."
Tessa produced a small brass key from her wallet.
Nora had given it to her for safekeeping the year she became ill.
She fitted it into the lock and turned it slowly.
Inside were thirteen sealed envelopes, each marked with Emma's name and an age.
The earliest had already been delivered.
The next was labeled SEVEN.
Between them lay a thin blue envelope addressed to Andrew.
He didn't open it at the loading dock.
Instead he pressed his palm against the wood and remembered Nora working at that desk with a scarf around her head, writing when the pain was bearable.
"She did all this so Emma would have birthdays with her mother," he told Tessa.
"And now Emma will," Tessa said.
There were only thirteen letters, not eighteen.
Nora had become too ill to finish them.
Andrew felt a fresh grief at that unfinished work, then reminded himself a mother's love wasn't measured by the number of envelopes she could complete.
At home he called Emma to ask whether she'd like the desk returned to Tessa's guest room or held in storage until they had a permanent place.
"The desk can wait," Emma said.
"Can the letters come home?"
"Yes, sweetheart."
"Then that's enough today."
May you like
After bedtime, Andrew finally opened the blue envelope.
The first line was addressed not to him, but to the woman he might one day marry after Nora was gone.
