The manager locked his office door behind us and set a leather folder on the desk. “Mrs. Pemberton, I am Mr. Ellison. Your husband opened this account twenty-two years ago, and he asked us to wait until you came in person, with the card.” My hands shook on the wheels. He turned the folder toward me, and the first page carried a figure I read three times: six million, four hundred thousand dollars. “It is held in a trust in your name alone,” he said. “Nobody else has ever had access.”

I could not speak. He slid a sealed envelope across the desk, my name written in Walter’s cramped handwriting. “He asked that you read this before you decide anything,” Mr. Ellison said gently. I broke the seal with trembling fingers, and the first line made the whole room go quiet.