He disappeared up a narrow staircase, and we sat in his living room listening to footsteps overhead, the creak of floorboards, the sound of boxes being moved. The house itself felt watchful, as if it had absorbed decades of other people’s grief through Michael’s professional presence and learned to hold sorrow without judgment.
When he returned, he was carrying a cardboard box that had been reinforced with packing tape, the kind of precaution you took when something was too precious to risk falling apart. He set it on the coffee table with the careful reverence of someone handling relics.
“My grandparents said these were things Mama would want me to have someday,” Michael said quietly. “Her Bible. Some photographs. Letters. I don’t know what else.”
Dash had pulled on latex gloves, and he cut through the packing tape with a pocketknife that looked like it had seen decades of use. The box opened with a sigh, releasing the scent of lavender sachets and old paper, time preserved in cardboard.
Photographs came out first—Ruby Bailey young and beautiful, holding a baby who must have been Michael. Ruby in her choir robe looking solemn and proud. Ruby with other women, all dressed in their Sunday clothes, smiling for the camera.
“She was so young,” Michael said, his voice rough. “Thirty-two. I forget that sometimes. She’s been dead longer than she was alive.”
Letters came next, tied with ribbon that had faded from what might once have been pink to the color of old bone. Dash untied the first bundle, unfolded the top letter with the care of someone handling evidence that might crumble.
My dearest Ruby,
I know we shouldn’t be doing this. I know what we have is wrong in the eyes of God and the church and everyone who matters. But when I’m with you I can breathe. You make me remember who I wanted to be before I became what everyone expected.
George Pickering’s handwriting—neat, careful, the script of someone who’d been taught penmanship in an era when it mattered. The words of a man caught between duty and desire, guilt and longing.
“Love letters,” Michael said flatly. “From Reverend Pickering.”
“Several dozen of them,” Dash confirmed, setting the bundle aside carefully. “We’ll need to go through these more thoroughly. May we take the box with us? We’ll document everything and return it when we’re done.”
Michael nodded. “Take it. Take whatever you need. I don’t want them back. I thought I was through being angry with her. Seeing all this makes me realize I’m not.”
Dash continued working through the box methodically. More bundles of letters, all tied with that faded ribbon. A journal with a worn leather cover. Photographs of Ruby at different ages—some with baby Michael, others with people I didn’t recognize. Everything carefully preserved, as if Ruby had been preparing for the day when someone might need to understand her life.
And then, tucked inside a Bible with a cover that had been handled so often the leather felt like cloth, Dash pulled out a bankbook.
Charleston Savings and Loan. Ruby Bailey’s name in neat script across the front.
He opened it carefully, and I watched his expression shift as he scanned the entries. He turned it so I could see.
Monthly deposits going back three years. But these weren’t the small amounts you’d expect from a housekeeper picking up extra jobs. Fifty dollars here, a hundred there, and then—starting in early 1985—several deposits of five hundred dollars. The final balance, dated September 10, 1985: $15,247.
“That’s a lot of money,” Michael said quietly, looking over our shoulders. “How did she—” He stopped, understanding dawning on his face. “The church funds.”
“We don’t know that,” I said quickly, though the numbers were damning. A housekeeper in 1985 would have made maybe two hundred dollars a week if she was lucky. These deposits were far beyond what cleaning houses would earn.
“She was stealing from the church,” Michael said, his voice hollow. “With Reverend Pickering. That’s what this was about. Not just an affair—they were embezzling together and someone found out.”
“Or someone was giving her money,” Dash said carefully, still studying the bankbook. “Pickering could have been supporting her, helping her save up to leave. That doesn’t necessarily mean she was involved in any theft.”
But even as he said it, I could see the doubt in his expression. Large deposits, multiple times over several months—that was more than help. That was serious money.
At the bottom of the box, wrapped in tissue paper that had yellowed with age, was a photograph. I unfolded the tissue carefully.
A large group photo, maybe twenty people standing together outdoors with what looked like picnic tables in the background. The kind of photograph churches took at summer events—everyone arranged in rows, some sitting, some standing, all smiling at the camera. The colors had that faded, and several faces were slightly blurred from movement.
I turned it over. On the back, in neat handwriting—First Methodist Church Picnic, July 4, 1985.
“Church picnic,” I said, studying the faces more carefully. Ruby Bailey stood near the back, her smile careful and composed. George Pickering was front and center, his arm around a woman who must have been his wife. And scattered throughout the group were other faces I didn’t recognize.
“Who are you looking for?” Michael asked.
“Stephanie Chester,” I said. “The woman we interviewed tonight. She claimed she barely knew your mother or Reverend Pickering, but if she was at church events…”
I scanned the faces more carefully—so many people, some in focus, some not. Then I spotted her. Third row, slightly to the left. A young blond woman standing between an older man and a younger man who looked enough like him to be his son.
