“Can you help me serve the food?”
Paul smiled gently.
“Yes.”
One by one, the guests moved again.
Someone turned down the music. Someone else carried the tablet into the study. A woman who had paid the eighty dollars began wrapping dinner plates for the guests to take home. The ordinary motions steadied the room.
Eleanor returned to the table.
She cut the turkey.
Her hands were not entirely steady, but they did not stop.
Martin stayed until the last bank call was finished. He explained each document before Eleanor signed it. He placed the evidence in a locked envelope and told her the investigator would contact her in the morning.
When he finally put on his coat, Eleanor walked him to the door.
“You did not have to come tonight,” she said.
“I did.”
“Why?”
Martin looked at the house.
“Your husband asked me to watch over you if you ever needed it.”
Eleanor’s hand paused on the doorknob.
“My husband?”
“Thomas came to my office three months before he died. He was updating his will.”
Eleanor stared at him.
“He never told me.”
“He wanted to surprise you. He said you would argue with him if you knew.”
A small, broken laugh escaped her.
“That sounds like him.”
Martin reached into his briefcase and removed a thin envelope.
“I found this with the older estate documents. I thought tonight was the right time to give it to you.”
Eleanor accepted it.
The envelope was addressed in Thomas’s handwriting.
She knew the shape of every letter.
Dear Ellie, it began.
She held it against her chest.
“Read it when you are alone,” Martin said.
He left before she could ask anything else.
The last guest departed shortly after midnight.
The house looked different without the crowd, though nothing had changed. Eleanor gathered the glasses and turned off the dining room lights. She moved slowly from room to room, touching the backs of chairs, straightening the stockings above the fireplace, and checking the lock on the front door.
Then she sat at the desk in the study.
The letter waited beneath the lamp.
She opened it carefully.
Ellie,
If Martin is giving you this, then you are probably angry with me for keeping another secret.
Eleanor smiled through her tears.
