Page 152 of Taken Away

You’re going.

Now Aubrey stared at four years of tuition statements.

Four years.

Every semester.

Her eyes drifted lower.

And stopped.

Theodore Langford.

Aubrey blinked.

No.

She looked again.

Theodore Langford.

Her pulse began to climb.

She reached for another document. Then another.

Checks. Invoices. Records.

Mabel Blackwood. Ted Langford.

Year after year.

Aubrey sat back.

Confused.

Not angry.

Confused.

How had they known each other? How had this happened? Why had nobody ever mentioned it?

Her eyes dropped back into the chest.

Beneath the folder sat a small box.

She lifted the lid.

And stopped breathing.

She reached deeper into the box and pulled out a brightly colored birthday card.

A smiling cartoon pony stood beneath a rainbow.

Happy 10th Birthday, Aubrey!

Across the bottom, written in familiar looping script:

Love always,