Part 1: The Envelope
“Sally, wait!”
I heard the voice behind me, but I kept walking.
Stopping meant another sympathetic face. Another hand squeezing my shoulder. Another person speaking Mark’s name in that careful, softened tone people used around a woman who was eight months pregnant and had just lost her husband.
“Sally, please.”
This time, I stopped.
Dr. Rivers was coming down the hospital hallway toward me. He looked exhausted, as if the last few days had weighed on him too. In one hand, he held a plain white envelope.
When he reached me, he hesitated.
“Mark gave me this about three weeks ago.”
My eyes dropped to the envelope.
“What is it?”
His expression tightened.
“There’s something he made me promise not to give you until now.”
A cold feeling moved through me.
“Until after he died?”
Dr. Rivers nodded.
“Why?”
“He said you’d understand if the time came when you needed it.”
I almost laughed.
Of course he had said something like that.
Even dying, Mark had somehow managed to be mysterious.
Dr. Rivers held the envelope out.
My name was written across the front in Mark’s uneven handwriting.
Sally.
Nothing more.
No explanation.
No warning.
Just my name.
“You don’t have to open it today,” Dr. Rivers said gently.
I stared at him.
“That was generous of him.”
A sad smile crossed his face.
I took the envelope and left the hospital carrying what felt like the final secret my husband had ever kept from me.
