AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She took a picture with her phone of a page inside the folder that listed many, if not all, of Archer Warwick’s clients in Grant’s small perfect printing. She saw Senator Burgess—she had met him many times over the years. BioRise Pharmaceuticals. A mining company in West Virginia, a host of other politicians and corporations—most of them on the larger scale. Corporations that would have their own in-house lawyers, like BioRise, but might need outside counsel for a host of other things.
On another sheet of paper were rows of numbers. She had no idea what the numbers represented—there were no dollar signs, they weren’t addresses or phone numbers or anything obvious like social security numbers. She took a picture of that page, too. But there were too many pages to copy them all, and Grant could be home any minute. She would definitely be asking him about this.
She glanced at her watch. He was already ten minutes late. She texted him.
I’m here, where are you?
He didn’t answer. She put the phone on his desk and looked through the rest of the drawer. Mostly there were legal notes from client meetings, and she didn’t feel comfortable looking through them.
She closed the right drawer, opened the drawer on the left. Here were his personal financial documents—bank statements, tax records, receipts, the like. She almost closed it when she saw a folder with her name on the flap. It stood out to her in the sea of folders labeled Tax Receipts, Auto Insurance, Homeowners Insurance, Bank Statements, Regan Merritt, 401K Documents.
She pulled out the folder with her name and opened it. She expected their divorce papers, or maybe even a copy of their marriage certificate for nostalgia purposes. But all that was in the file was a square envelope with her name written in Grant’s writing on the front.
Her stomach twisted. Shortly after she found out she was pregnant with Chase, she had written her unborn son a letter. It was short, full of hopes and dreams for him, talking about how she and his dad met, what they were doing in their lives, and why they were looking forward to his birth because it would complete their family. Grant had come in as she was folding it up, and she told him that her mom had written individual letters to Regan and her siblings after she was diagnosed with cancer. It wasn’t until she died that their dad had given them the letters. Regan, who wasn’t generally nostalgic, had wanted to do the same for Chase, but instead of a letter after trauma, she wanted to write a letter several times throughout his life.
He’d never read the seven letters she’d penned.
She steeled herself against the emotions threatening to unleash themselves.
She should put the letter back. It could be something he’d written in the event of his death, something that she’d get years from now, if ever.
Yet...why would it be here, alone, and not with his will?
She turned it over. It wasn’t sealed. On the back there was a date.
May 1.
The day after Tommy and Grant had met in person, three weeks ago.
She pulled out the letter written on Grant’s personal stationery, unfolded it. She’d always thought it was a bit old-fashioned to have personal stationery—she thought her mother was the last person to always send out personalized thank-you notes—but realized that the nod to the past built both personal and professional relationships, distinguishing Grant from his peers in a positive way.
In Grant’s perfect, small cursive he wrote:
April 2
Dear Regan—
So he’d started the letter nearly a month before he put it in the envelope. She started with the main part of the letter.
Today at Chase’s grave, I was reminded why I fell in love with you. And it hit me, everything that I said and did to you last year. Today, your quiet grief hit me, and I realized how cruel and selfish I was after Chase’s death. You suffered as I suffered, but I couldn’t see through my own rage and sorrow.
I am so, so sorry.
Together, we had Chase. For too short a time, we had a wonderful boy we both loved. I hope that now, after time and perspective, that when we see each other, we’ll remember the good. Even if it’s once a year, at our son’s grave.
Grant had stopped there. Maybe he’d intended to write more, maybe he didn’t, but an inch down he’d writtenMay 1, followed by:
I blamed you for the longest time, as if it were your job that killed our boy. Even last month, when I saw you at Chase’s grave, I thought that I could now forgive you. As if you had anything to be forgiven for!
I don’t know what happened. But everything I believed then...it was a lie. Tom has a wild theory, and I don’t know that I fully believe him...yet...something he said has me thinking, and I fear that he’s right.
And if Tom is right, then I was very, very wrong.
—GRW
Regan frowned. What did Grant mean by that?
She remembered what he’d said to her at his office.
