I sat down on a bench in the corridor and read Winifred’s letter first. She had discovered that Preston had been draining her savings for six years, using a power of attorney he had pressured her to sign. The money paid for an apartment and trips for a woman named Sienna. Winifred was too frail and too ashamed to confront him, so she kept every date and withdrawal in the black notebook. She hid the key against her body so he could never find it.

The envelope held her new will, signed and witnessed three months earlier. She had left her house and what remained of her savings to me, and she had cut off Preston completely. Her letter explained why. She wrote that I had held her hand when her own son would not, and that the title of daughter was something I had earned. I cried until the clerk quietly brought me a box of tissues. Then I called Mr. Delgado, who confirmed everything and promised to take care of the rest.

That evening I laid my wedding ring beside the divorce papers on the kitchen table, added a copy of his mother’s death certificate, and left for my sister’s home. Preston rushed back from the island the next day and called me forty times, and I did not answer once. By then Mr. Delgado had delivered the notebook and the power of attorney to the police. Sienna had known nothing about where the money came from, and she left him the moment investigators called her.

Preston was charged with fraud, ordered to repay every cent, and lost both his job and his reputation. I kept Winifred’s house and turned her sunny back room into the little library she always wanted. Every spring I plant her favorite roses by the porch. In her last moment she told me to stop crying, and I finally did.