I lifted the lid.
And what I saw inside made me gasp!
I pressed my hand to my mouth and sobbed.
Inside sat a folded deed to Thomas's family home, trust documents in my name, and a thick stack of letters tied with twine. Fifty-five of them. One for every year he hadn't written, every year until the one that finally brought me back to him.
I lifted the lid.
On top lay a handwritten note in his careful script.
I looked up at Walter, my throat tight, tears sliding down my cheeks.
"I don't understand."
"Read it, Nancy. He wanted you to hear it in his own words."
Thomas had written that Aunt Margaret had been a customer at his father's hardware store for 40 years, and a friend besides.
"I don't understand."
He'd tried to warn her about Raymond siphoning money from her accounts when he let it spill by mistake, but she wouldn't hear a word against her nephew. When she passed, and Raymond walked away richer, Thomas had kept watching him.
So when he learned I'd moved back and taken the nursing job, with Raymond hovering close, he asked to be transferred to my ward.
