RICHARD.
And one simply read:
HOUSE.
I reached for mine.
Then stopped.
“Which one first?”
Claire pointed to HOUSE.
“I think we’ve spent enough years opening things in the wrong order.”
I untied the ribbon.
Inside the HOUSE envelope was a short letter and a typed ledger.
Anne’s letter began:
Richard,
If you’re reading this, you’ve probably discovered that I made the household fund more complicated than you liked.
I smiled despite myself.
Claire
covered her mouth.
“She knew you so well.”
I kept reading.
Anne explained that she had created a private assistance account for employees of the estate.
Not charity, she insisted.
A recognition fund.
If someone had worked in our home for years and suddenly faced a broken car, tuition bill, funeral flight, licensing course, or temporary emergency, she wanted help to exist without a humiliating conversation.
She had funded it entirely from Hawthorne income.
