I never pushed.
I trusted him.
Until his health began to fail.
By the fifth year, Richard needed a wheelchair.
His hands shook.
His voice became quieter.
I helped him dress.
I brought him his coffee.
I sat beside him in the garden.
One afternoon, we watched Emily practicing chess.
Richard smiled.
“She’ll be very good.”
“She learned from you.”
“No.”
He shook his head.
“She learned from watching you survive.”
I looked at him.
“What does that mean?”
He smiled.
“Nothing.”
But I knew it wasn’t nothing.
That night, I asked him if he was afraid of dying.
He stared through the window.
“I’ve had a long life.”
“That’s not an answer.”
He smiled.
“I’m not afraid of dying.”
“What are you afraid of?”
He was silent for a long time.
“Leaving things unfinished.”
I took his hand.
“You haven’t left anything unfinished.”
He looked at me.
“You don’t know that.”
I squeezed his fingers.
“I know you.”
He smiled.
“I hope you do.”
It was the last serious conversation we ever had.
Two weeks later, Richard died peacefully in his sleep.
And for the second time in my life, I sat beside the bed of a man I loved and watched the person I depended on disappear.
I thought I knew what came next.
I was wrong.
The lawyer arrived the following morning.
He told me Richard had left nothing to me.
Then he showed me the photograph.
The little girl.
The shelter.
The words on the back.
She deserved a home.
I stared at it.
“Why?”
The lawyer opened Richard’s letter.
“Because Richard knew you would ask that.”
My hands shook.
He began to read.
Richard had been helping the children’s shelter for decades.
He had helped renovate it.
He had paid for food.
He had funded scholarships.
He had quietly helped children who had nowhere else to go.
And one day, when he was still a young man, he had visited the shelter.
There had been a little girl sitting alone.
Me.
I had been frightened.
I had refused to speak to anyone.
Until Richard picked me up.
According to his letter, I had wrapped my arms around his neck and refused to let go.
He had carried me around for nearly an hour.
Before he left, he had promised me something.
“You’re going to have a home someday.”
