My father threw me out on my eighteenth birthday, stole the $3,000 I’d saved from working after school, and used it for my stepbrother. Nine days later, while I was digging through a restaurant dumpster for something to eat, a stranger in an expensive suit called my name and told me my supposedly dead grandfather had left me everything. But there was one condition nobody had warned me about.

“Did he leave anything else?”

“He said you would know when you were ready.”

That phrase irritated me.

“I don’t know anything.”

“Then start with the box.”

She left me alone.

The lid opened without a key.

Inside were several envelopes, a small silver locket, and a stack of letters tied with blue ribbon.

The envelopes were addressed to my mother.

All of them had been returned unopened.

I untied the ribbon.

The first letter was dated twenty years ago.

Claire,

I am not asking you to forgive me. I am asking you to let me explain.

The second was written a month later.

I spoke with a lawyer today. He says I can arrange a trust for the child without contacting you directly. I hope you will allow it. The money is not meant to control you. It is meant to give him choices.

The third was shorter.