I woke before sunrise the next morning.
The house was quiet, and the first thing I saw was Walt's mug sitting beside the sink.
I had washed it the night before but hadn't put it away.
For some reason, I couldn't bring myself to place it in the cupboard with the others.
I made coffee and carried the mug to the kitchen table.
Then I took out the folder I had found in Walt's study.
The papers were still arranged exactly as I had left them.
I had spent hours looking through them, hoping something would explain why Walt had prepared letters for our children without telling me.
There were dates, handwritten notes, and copies of documents I barely understood.
Nothing gave me a complete answer.
I had always believed that if a person wanted to tell you something important, they would eventually find the courage to say it.
Walt had been my husband for more than forty years.
I knew the sound of his footsteps, the way he cleared his throat before disagreeing with me, and how he folded his newspaper when he was finished reading.
Yet I was beginning to understand how much of him I had never really known.
My phone rang while I was turning over a sheet of paper.
It was Danny.
"Mom, did you sleep?"
"A little."
"That's better than nothing."
I could hear a television in the background and a small voice calling for him.
Noah was awake.
"How is Kayla?" I asked.
"She's getting the boys ready. I wanted to check on you before the morning gets away from us."
I looked at the folder.
"Danny, I want us to talk again."
"We can."
"All three of us. I don't want to keep guessing about what your father wrote."
Danny was quiet for a moment.
"I think that's what Dad wanted us to do."
"Did he actually say that?"
"Not exactly."
I waited, but Danny didn't explain further.
Instead, he asked whether I wanted him to come over.
I told him I would drive to his house later that morning.
After we hung up, I called Stephanie.
She answered on the fourth ring.
"Mom?"
"I hope I'm not interrupting anything."
"No. I'm just getting dressed."
"I'd like you and your brothers to meet me at Danny's again."
"Today?"
"If everyone can manage it."
She paused.
"Michael might not like that."
"Michael doesn't have to like everything I ask him to do."
The words came out more sharply than I intended.
Stephanie didn't respond right away.
Then she said, "I'll call him."
I thanked her and ended the call.
Michael was the last person I contacted.
He answered while I was putting on my coat.
"Mom, is something wrong?"
"I don't know yet."
"That's not a very comforting answer."
"I need to speak with you, Michael."
"We spoke yesterday."
"We sat around a table yesterday. That isn't the same thing."
He sighed.
I knew that sigh.
It was the one he had used since he was a teenager whenever he believed I was making something unnecessarily difficult.
"I have work to do," he said.
"So do I."
"What do you want me to tell you?"
"The truth."
He didn't answer.
I tightened my grip on the phone.
"Your father left you a letter. I don't know what it said, and I'm not asking you to hand it over if you aren't ready. But I want to understand why he felt he needed to write it."
"Maybe you should ask him."
The words hurt more than they should have.
I looked at Walt's empty chair.
"I would if I could."
Michael went silent.
For a moment, I thought he might apologize.
Instead, he told me he would come to Danny's house that afternoon.
I thanked him.
When I arrived at Danny's, Kayla opened the door with Noah balanced against her hip.
"Come in, Margaret."
She smiled, but I could see the tiredness around her eyes.
The house smelled of toast and laundry detergent.
A small pair of shoes lay beneath the coat rack, and a toy truck had been abandoned beside the stairs.
It was an ordinary family home.
That ordinary feeling comforted me.
For months, everything in my life had seemed divided into before and after Walt's death.
Here, children still needed breakfast, laundry still needed folding, and somebody had to remember where the missing shoes were.
Kayla took my coat.
"Danny's in the kitchen."
I followed her down the hall.
Danny was standing beside the counter, making another pot of coffee.
He turned when he heard me.
"You brought the folder."
"I thought we might need it."
He looked at the papers beneath my arm.
"Did you find anything new?"
"Nothing that explains the letters."
He nodded.
I sat at the table.
Danny placed a cup in front of me.
For a while, neither of us spoke.
Then he pulled out the chair across from mine.
"Mom, there's something I should tell you."
I looked up.
"All right."
"When Dad gave me my envelope, he told me not to open it until I was sure I could read it without getting angry."
I stared at him.
"Why would he say that?"
"I don't know. At the time, I thought he was being dramatic."
"And now?"
"Now I'm not sure."
I rested my hands around the warm cup.
"Did the letter make you angry?"
Danny considered the question.
"It made me sad. There's a difference."
Before I could ask what he meant, the front door opened.
Stephanie came in carrying her handbag and a paper bag from a bakery.
"I brought something for everyone."
She set the bag on the counter.
Then she noticed the folder.
"Have you found anything?"
"Not yet," I said.
Stephanie pulled out a chair.
"Maybe we're looking in the wrong place."
"What do you mean?"
"Maybe the papers aren't supposed to explain the letters. Maybe the letters are supposed to explain the papers."
Danny looked at her.
"That sounds like something Dad would do."
"It does," she admitted.
We heard another car outside.
A moment later, Michael walked through the front door with Jenna behind him.
He greeted Danny, nodded at Stephanie, and kissed my cheek.
It was a polite greeting.
Too polite for a family that had spent the previous day sitting together with their father's last words between them.
Michael removed his jacket and hung it up.
"All right," he said. "I'm here. What are we trying to accomplish?"
I looked at my three children.
When they were young, they used to crowd around the kitchen table to tell me about school.
They spoke over one another, each convinced that their story was the most important.
Now they waited for permission to speak.
That change saddened me more than I expected.
"I want us to begin with what we know," I said. "Not what we suspect, and not what we think your father should have done. Just what we know."
Michael folded his arms.
"Fine."
"Your father prepared three letters. He gave each of you one before he died. He told you things he apparently didn't tell me. I found these papers in his study, but I don't understand why he kept them."
I placed the folder on the table.
"And I know that whatever he was trying to say, he believed it mattered enough to put it in writing."
Nobody interrupted.
I looked at Michael.
"Would you be willing to tell us what your letter said?"
He glanced at Jenna.
She didn't speak.
Then he looked down at his hands.
"Not all of it," he said.
"That's fair."
"But I can tell you why I was upset."
I nodded.
Michael took a slow breath.
"When I started reading it yesterday, I thought Dad was apologizing for something small. Something he'd never admitted because he was too proud."
He rubbed his thumb along the edge of the table.
"But he wasn't apologizing for one thing. He was talking about years of decisions."
"What decisions?" Stephanie asked.
Michael looked at her.
"Decisions that affected all of us."
The room grew still.
I wanted to ask him to read the letter aloud.
Instead, I waited.
For the first time in a long while, I understood that listening meant allowing someone else to decide when they were ready to speak.
Michael looked toward the folder.
"Maybe we should start there," he said.
And so we did.
Click here to continue reading: PART 10: When We Opened the Old Folder Together, We Discovered That Our Father’s Silence Had Affected Each of Us Differently
After Burying My Husband, I Made Three Calls That Revealed What My Children Truly Thought I Was Worth
Part 9 of 20
