Nolan froze. “Mom.”
“I know, honey. Let me.”
“Mom, what am I looking at?”
I knelt beside him and pulled the box free. It felt heavier than I remembered.
I carried it to the coffee table and set it down.
“Whose is that?” Chloe’s voice was thin.
My eyes stayed on Nolan instead of her. “It’s Rosalind’s.”
His expression changed in a way I hadn’t seen for four years.
I lifted the box out.
“When she got sick,” I told him quietly, “she wrote letters. For the kids. For every big day she knew she wasn’t going to see. First day of middle school. First heartbreak. Graduation. Wedding day. One for you, too.”
Ivy cautiously stepped closer. Theo moved with her.
“Mom wrote to us?” Ivy whispered.
“She made me promise I’d leave the box exactly where she hid it. When one of those days came, I was supposed to take out the right letter and put everything back.”
One for you, too.
Nolan’s eyes filled with tears. “She never told me.”
“She wanted her words to reach you when you needed them – not before.”
Behind him, Chloe shifted uncomfortably. “Maybe we shouldn’t open them in front of everyone. They’re private.”
“How do you know?”
Chloe stopped moving. “Know what?”
“That they’re private.”
Maybe we shouldn’t open them.
“They’re letters, Marlene. I assumed.”
I held her gaze briefly before looking down at the box again. I opened the lid.
The ribbon inside wasn’t tied properly. The envelopes were arranged incorrectly, their edges uneven and out of place.
A cold sensation traveled down my spine.
I counted them.
