“This must be a mistake,” I whispered.
“Read his letter,” Mr. Grant said. “His children intend to arrive with a court injunction at five.”
Walter’s familiar handwriting blurred through my tears.
My dearest Margaret,
I told you the truth about earning my fortune in commercial shipping. I never told you what I sacrificed to begin.
Your mother was Rose. You were three when I left.
I stopped reading. My grandmother had told me my father died in an industrial accident. I had grown up in state care, worked thirty years as an assistant librarian, and eventually survived on a tiny pension while he lived six floors above me.
The letter continued.
Diana’s father offered me a place in his shipping business, provided I severed every connection to my past. I chose wealth and abandoned you and your mother.
I left a modest trust fund. Your grandmother’s attorney stole it six months later, something I discovered decades too late.
