For several seconds, I couldn’t move.
Inside the box wasn’t cash.
It wasn’t a deed.
It wasn’t a key to a hidden safe.
It was a stack of worn photographs.
The first showed a little boy, maybe seven years old, smiling beside an old fishing boat. On the back, in Evelyn’s handwriting, were four simple words:
“You looked happy here.”
My heart skipped.
That was me.
I hadn’t seen that photograph since I was a child.
Hands shaking, I pulled out another.
I was twelve, standing outside the county fair with my late father, both of us holding oversized corn dogs and laughing.
Then another.
Me graduating from high school.
Me fixing the engine of my first pickup.
Every picture captured moments I had never shared with Evelyn.
How could she possibly have them?
Beneath the photographs lay a sealed envelope.
I broke it open.
