The question of fairness stayed in the room.
Michael had asked it plainly.
If Walt had left something for his children, why shouldn't they receive equal shares?
I understood why he wanted an answer.
I also wished he had asked something else first.
What had his father written?
Why had he taken the trouble to prepare three separate envelopes?
What did he want each of them to remember?
Those were the questions I had been carrying.
Michael was looking at the envelopes as though their weight might explain everything.
Stephanie was doing the same.
Danny hadn't said a word.
I sat across from them and felt how strange it was to be the only parent left at the table.
For years, Walt and I had raised our children together.
We had watched them grow from babies into people with opinions of their own.
Now I was looking at those people without him.
And I was being asked to explain something he had chosen to leave behind.
I didn't want to speak for him before they read what he had written.
"Mom," Michael said, "I'm not trying to make this difficult."
"I know."
"I just don't understand why there would be a difference."
"I understand that."
Stephanie glanced at him.
Then she turned toward me.
"Are you saying Dad meant to give Danny something extra?"
I looked down at the table.
The envelopes were still closed.
"Read yours, Stephanie."
She pressed her lips together.
I recognized the expression.
She had made that same face as a child when she was unhappy with an answer.
I remembered being able to reach across the kitchen table and take her little hand.
I could not do that now.
Not because I didn't love her.
Because she was no longer eight years old.
She was a grown woman asking grown questions.
And I could not protect her from whatever feelings her father's letter might bring.
Michael looked toward Danny.
"Do you know what's in yours?"
Danny shook his head.
"No."
Michael looked back at me.
"So none of us knows?"
"Not until you read them."
Nobody spoke for a moment.
I could hear the slight movement of the paper as Stephanie turned her envelope between her fingers.
She was impatient.
I could see that.
Michael looked concerned about the difference.
Danny looked uncomfortable with the attention.
It would have been easier if all three envelopes had looked alike.
I knew that.
No one would have compared their thickness.
No one would have begun by asking whether the contents had been divided evenly.
But they did not look alike.
And I wasn't going to pretend otherwise.
I thought about the photograph that Stephanie was about to find.
I knew what it showed.
I knew how young she had been.
And I knew Walt was in it with her.
I wanted that picture to matter.
I wanted her to recognize herself before she began worrying about what her brothers might receive.
I had been carrying that hope quietly.
Now I wasn't certain it would survive the first few minutes.
"Does this have to be about who gets more?" I asked.
Stephanie looked up.
"We haven't even seen what we got."
"Then look."
My voice came out firmer than I intended.
I saw her expression change.
I regretted my tone immediately.
"I didn't mean to snap at you."
She lowered her eyes.
"It's fine."
But it wasn't fine.
Walt was dead.
I was sitting with our three children.
And instead of hearing his words, we were talking around them.
I looked at Michael.
He rested his forearms on the table.
His watch glinted again.
I noticed it without meaning to.
I had seen him grow into the sort of man who paid attention to what things were worth.
That did not tell me everything about him.
It was one part of the man he had become.
I didn't want to judge him by a single question.
Yet I couldn't deny that his question had hurt me.
"If it's money," he said, "there should be a clear explanation."
I nodded.
"I hear you."
He looked relieved for a moment.
Then I added something.
"But I want you to hear your father, too."
That quieted him.
Danny moved his envelope slightly away from the edge of the table.
It made a soft scraping sound.
Stephanie glanced over.
He stopped moving it.
"I'm not asking Danny to give me anything," she said.
"I didn't say you were."
"I just noticed the difference."
"I know."
She looked down at her own envelope.
I watched the way she held it.
Tightly.
Like the paper itself had offended her.
And I remembered her at the fair.
Eight years old.
Laughing.
High above the ground on Walt's shoulders.
She had trusted him to carry her.
I could picture that much without looking at the photograph.
That memory belonged to all of us.
Yet she didn't know it was waiting inside the envelope.
I almost told her.
I wanted to say that there was something in there she might love.
Something that had nothing to do with whether Danny's envelope was thicker.
But I stopped myself.
I had promised myself I would let Walt's words and choices speak first.
So I sat still.
Michael turned his envelope over.
"This is strange," he said quietly.
"Yes."
I didn't try to make it sound normal.
It was strange.
A father gone.
Three children sitting with pieces of paper he had prepared.
A mother watching them, unable to know what each would feel.
There was nothing ordinary about that.
"Are you ready?" I asked.
Nobody answered immediately.
Then Stephanie placed the envelope flat.
She slid one finger under its edge.
"I'll read mine."
Michael sat back.
Danny looked toward her.
I folded my hands again.
And this time, I didn't say anything else.
The choice to begin belonged to her.
Click here to continue reading: PART 3: Stephanie Opened Her Father’s Envelope Before Either of Her Brothers, and the First Thing She Found Wasn’t What She Expected
When My Daughter Saw the Difference Between Three Envelopes, She Asked the Question I Had Been Afraid to Answer
Part 2 of 8
