He admitted he had gone back into the attic several times.
Sometimes he considered giving me the envelope.
Sometimes he considered opening it first.
Not because he wanted to invade my privacy, he claimed, but because he wanted to know whether the contents would hurt me.
Then one day, the envelope disappeared.
“You lost it?”
“No. I put it in the same place every time. Then it was gone.”
Brian searched the attic.
Nothing.
That was when he remembered an old family story.
My grandmother had lived through the Depression and never fully trusted banks.
Years earlier, my mother discovered four hundred dollars hidden inside a wall while repairing water damage.
Grandma had apparently used the cafar walls as her emergency savings account.
Brian started wondering whether she had hidden other things.
Or whether my father had.
“So you started opening walls.”
“Yes.”
“Without telling me.”
“Yes.”
I stared at him.
“And did you find anything?”
He reached into his jacket.
Then he pulled out two old envelopes held together with a brittle rubber band.
My hands went cold.
“I haven’t opened them,” he said.
He handed them to me.
The rubber band broke the moment I touched it.
The first envelope had one word written across the front.
Ellen.
My name.
In Dad’s handwriting.
The second said:
Margaret.
My mother.
Also in Dad’s handwriting.
Brian looked at me.
“I should’ve given you the first one six months ago.”
“Yes.”
“I’m sorry.”
I opened my envelope.
Inside were two pages written by my father.
Some of what he wrote is private.
But the important part was this:
Eight months before he died, Dad had been diagnosed with a serious heart condition.
Not the heart attack that eventually killed him.
Something else.
His doctors had warned him that it could shorten his life.
He never told Mom.
He never told me.
Instead, he wrote letters.
FULL STORY on the next page.