Inside the box wasn’t money.
It wasn’t jewelry.
It wasn’t anything valuable in the usual sense.
It was a thick stack of letters.
On top lay a faded photograph.
The moment I picked it up, my breath caught.
It showed a young woman holding a baby.
The woman looked almost exactly like my mother.
The baby was wearing a tiny knitted blanket embroidered with the initials E.M.
Those were my initials.
Emily Morgan.
My hands began to shake.
Beneath the photograph was another envelope.
Across the front, in Mr. Whitmore’s careful handwriting, were the words:
“Open this first.”
I unfolded the letter.
“Emily, by now you’ve found the photograph. The woman holding you is your mother, Margaret. The man who took the picture was me.”
I stared at the page.
“I wasn’t just your neighbor. Long before you were born, I loved your mother.”
Everything around me seemed to disappear.
According to the letter, my mother and Mr. Whitmore had dated in their early twenties.
