Her brother, Julian, swept in ten minutes late, smelling of airport coffee and the particular musk of avoidance. He was sixty-four, but dressed like a man trying to be fifty-four: a blazer over a t-shirt, designer stubble, a watch that cost more than the family’s first car. He didn’t sit. He paced.
“There’s more,” Eleanor said. She reached into the chest and pulled out a stack of letters, tied with a brown ribbon. “These are letters Sarah wrote to Mother. From the hospital, during her last months. Mother couldn’t bear to read them. She asked me to keep them safe. To give them to you, when the time was right.”
Margot looked up at him. “What do you mean?”
“I mean I spent thirty years angry at her for not loving me the way she loved you two. But I never asked why. I just took. The money, the timeshare, the attention. I never gave anything back.”
Her brother, Julian, swept in ten minutes late, smelling of airport coffee and the particular musk of avoidance. He was sixty-four, but dressed like a man trying to be fifty-four: a blazer over a t-shirt, designer stubble, a watch that cost more than the family’s first car. He didn’t sit. He paced.
“There’s more,” Eleanor said. She reached into the chest and pulled out a stack of letters, tied with a brown ribbon. “These are letters Sarah wrote to Mother. From the hospital, during her last months. Mother couldn’t bear to read them. She asked me to keep them safe. To give them to you, when the time was right.”
Margot looked up at him. “What do you mean?”
“I mean I spent thirty years angry at her for not loving me the way she loved you two. But I never asked why. I just took. The money, the timeshare, the attention. I never gave anything back.”