Part 2 — The Letter
After everyone left, Daniel closed the conference-room door.
He did not immediately sit down.
Instead, he walked to a locked cabinet, opened it, and removed a cream-colored envelope.
My name was written across the front in Walter’s handwriting.
Eleanor.
Just seeing those familiar letters nearly broke me.
Walter’s handwriting had become shaky during his last year, but I would have recognized it anywhere.
Daniel placed the envelope in front of me.
“Your husband wrote this six months ago.”
“Why wasn’t it with the will?”
“Because he specifically instructed me not to give it to you until after the will had been read in front of the family.”
I stared at him.
“Why?”
Daniel took a breath.
“Read it.”
My fingers trembled as I opened the envelope.
Inside were eight handwritten pages.
The first lines stopped me cold.
My love,
If you’re reading this, then everyone now believes I left you nothing. That’s exactly what I needed everyone to believe.
I looked up.
Daniel remained silent.
I kept reading.
I know you are hurt. I know you are probably angry. You have every right to be. Before I explain the will, I need to tell you something I should have told you many years ago.
You need to know the truth about me.
All my life, I carried a secret I was ashamed of—not because of what I had done, but because I was afraid that once the truth entered our home, it would never leave us in peace.
I told myself I was protecting you. Sometimes I was. Sometimes I was simply afraid.
Please don’t trust Margaret until you finish this letter.
My eyes moved faster.
Walter wrote that when he was nineteen, two years before we met, his mother had become seriously ill.
Before she died, she told him something that changed his life.
The man Walter had always called his father was not his biological father.
Walter’s biological father was a man named Charles Bellamy.
I knew the name.
Anyone in central Ohio our age would have.
Bellamy Manufacturing had once been one of the largest privately held industrial companies in the state.
Charles Bellamy had died in the 1970s.
According to Walter’s letter, Charles and Walter’s mother had known each other when they were young. Their relationship ended before she realized she was pregnant. She later married the man Walter grew up calling Dad.
Only four people ever knew the truth.
Walter’s mother.
Charles Bellamy.
Walter.
And Margaret.
I stopped reading.
“Margaret knew?”
Daniel nodded.
I returned to the letter.
Walter’s mother had begged him never to confront the man who had raised him.
He was my father in every way that mattered, Ellie. I loved him. He loved me. I never wanted blood to become more important than the man who taught me how to ride a bicycle and sat beside my hospital bed when I had pneumonia.
Walter never contacted Charles Bellamy.
But Charles apparently knew about Walter.
When Bellamy died, he left instructions with an attorney.
Walter was quietly contacted.
A trust had been established for him.
Not a small one.
Walter wrote that when he first learned the amount, he felt physically sick.
At the time, Walter and I had three children and were still worrying about grocery bills.
He could have changed our lives overnight.
Instead, he told me nothing.
I lowered the pages.
“Why?” I whispered.
Daniel gestured toward the letter.
Walter had answered the question before I could ask it.
This is the part you may never forgive me for.
I didn’t tell you.
At first, I wanted to. I came home carrying the paperwork in my briefcase. You were in the kitchen helping Susan with a school project. Michael and David were arguing over a baseball glove. You looked tired, happy, irritated, and completely yourself.
And I became terrified.
Charles Bellamy’s attorneys warned me that other members of the Bellamy family might challenge the trust if my identity became public. Margaret had already found one of Mother’s old letters and knew everything. She believed that because she was my sister, she should receive half of anything I received.
When I refused, she told me she would make sure everyone knew whose son I really was.
I was afraid of newspaper stories. Lawsuits. People approaching our children. I was afraid money would enter our marriage like a stranger and sit between us forever.
So I made the worst decision of my life.
I kept quiet.
I sat back in the chair.
For sixty-nine years, Walter and I had shared almost everything.
Or I had believed we had.
Yet for more than forty years, my husband had been carrying a secret fortune.
I was furious.
Even now, I can admit that.
Love does not erase anger.
Death does not make every mistake forgivable.
I wanted Walter sitting across from me so I could demand an explanation.
I wanted to tell him he had no right to decide what I could handle.
But there were still several pages left.
And Walter had written one sentence in capital letters.
THE MONEY IS NOT THE REAL SECRET.
For illustrative purposes only
