In the letter, William explained that when he first hired me, he hadn’t recognized me.
A few weeks later, he happened to notice the address of my former group home and my last name among some of my documents.
That was when he realized I had been one of the children he had anonymously helped years earlier.
“I could have simply given you money,” William had written.
“But you never would have accepted it.
I realized that the day I offered to advance you money for Sophie’s medication, and you insisted that you would repay every cent.
You never asked me for a car, jewelry, or money.
Not even after we were married.
When I offered to buy you a new car, you chose a used one.
When I wanted to buy you an expensive dress, you told me Sophie’s school expenses mattered more.
That was when I understood that, in the beginning, you had married me because you were afraid.
Afraid your daughter would have no home.
But then, one day, everything changed.”
I swallowed hard, trying to hold back my tears.
I remembered that day.
After a fall on the stairs, William could no longer walk on his own.
The doctors recommended hiring a full-time caregiver.
But I refused to leave him in someone else’s hands.
Every morning, I helped him get dressed.
In the evenings, I pushed his wheelchair through the garden.
When he couldn’t sleep, we sat in the kitchen drinking tea until sunrise.
I wasn’t staying beside him because of the house anymore.
I stayed because I loved him.
By the time I reached the final page of the letter, I was crying.
“Laura, I was never angry that you initially married me because you needed security.
You didn’t choose a luxurious life.
You chose a roof over your daughter’s head.
And perhaps selfishly, I used that opportunity to finally have a family of my own.
You gave me five years that became the happiest years of my life.
Sophie called me Grandpa for the first time when I had already begun to believe that I would never be urm truly needed by anyone again.
And that is why I left you nothing in my will.”
Confused, I looked at Harris.
“I don’t understand.”
He placed a second folder on the table.
“Because everything William wanted you to have was no longer part of his estate by the time he died.”
I opened the folder.
The first document was the deed to the house.
In my name.
I covered my mouth with my hand.
The next document showed an investment account.
It had been created three years earlier.
For Sophie.
There was enough money in it to pay for her education.
Then I found another document.
William had established a foundation.
Its purpose was to help struggling single mothers and children in the foster-care system.
And one person had been appointed to run it.