Page 84 of Key West Homecoming

She was four years old, standing on the cottage porch in a red bathing suit and holding up a jar with something inside it. Her father crouched beside her with one hand on her shoulder, laughing.

She hadn’t seen a photograph of her father in years. There were several in a box in her closet in Chicago, but she hadn’t opened it since Ruth died. He looked younger than the father she carried in her few memories. He was only in his early thirties, and there was something so ordinary about the way his hand rested on her shoulder that it hurt more than Emma expected.

Gloria had written on the back.

David and Em, the cottage. It was the summer he’d taught her to swim.

Emma touched the edge of the photograph.

“I don’t remember this.”

Edmund’s voice was gentle. “You were very young.”

“I remember learning to swim, but I didn’t trust my memory to believe everything I thought I knew.”

She looked at the picture another moment before sliding it carefully back into the sleeve.

The velvet pouch held Gloria’s wedding ring. The gold band was thin from years of wear, and a small diamond sat in the center. Emma held it in her palm and remembered seeing it on her grandmother’s hand when she was a child.

She closed her fingers around it before returning it to the pouch.

Then she picked up the leather notebook.

She opened to a page near the middle and saw Gloria’s handwriting in short, dated entries.

Edmund read me the last chapter of the Erdrich. I cried a little. He kept his hand on my back.

Emma closed the notebook.

That was enough for today. She wanted to read the rest when she was alone and could take her time.

She picked up the envelope marked For Edmund and slid it across the table.

He looked at it for a long moment before picking it up.

“May I open it now?”

“Of course.”

Edmund worked one finger beneath the flap and unfolded the single sheet inside. He read it slowly. When he reached the bottom, he lowered the letter to the table and closed his eyes.

Emma looked away.

Rachel did too.

After a while, Edmund folded the letter along its creases and slipped it into the inside pocket of his jacket.

“Thank you,” he said.

Emma nodded. “I’m glad she left something for you too.”

“So am I.”

Rachel placed the original will in the accordion folder she had brought and wrote the date and contents across the front. Emma put the photograph, ring and notebook into her tote bag.

When she tried to return the safe deposit key to Edmund, he closed her fingers around it.

“It belongs to you now.”