Chapter 3 - The Drawer Howard Never Opened in Front of Anyone
Howard Ashby's study had been left almost untouched since his funeral.
Margaret told us that as she led the way down the hallway.
Conrad followed directly behind her.
Felicity walked beside him.
I stayed near the doorway because part of me suddenly wanted to leave.
Whatever was inside Howard's desk could not return eight years to my children.
It could not erase premature births, midnight fevers, four first steps Conrad never saw, or the nights I sat on the kitchen floor after everyone was asleep and wondered what I had done wrong.
But Noah appeared behind me.
He had slipped out of the sitting room.
"Mom?"
"You should stay with the others."
"I heard Grandpa's name."
He had never called Howard Grandpa before.
The word seemed to hit Conrad harder than anything I could have said.
I touched Noah's shoulder.
"Go back for a few minutes."
He nodded.
Conrad watched him leave.
Then whispered:
"He's exactly how I was at that age."
I said nothing.
Margaret approached a mahogany desk beneath the window.
The bottom drawer had an old brass lock.
Her hands shook as she removed a small key from a chain around her neck.
"I've been afraid to open this."
Conrad stared at her.
"Why?"
"Because your father spent forty-three years teaching me that anything he locked away wasn't mine to question."
She inserted the key.
It turned.
The drawer opened.
Inside were three leather folders.
A stack of envelopes.
A small metal cash box.
And one cream-colored envelope with Conrad's name written across the front.
Margaret gasped.
"My handwriting."
She picked it up.
The seal was still intact.
Conrad stared at it.
"That's the letter?"
She nodded.
He opened it.
His eyes moved rapidly across the page.
Then he stopped.
I watched his face change.
Margaret had written the letter three weeks after Conrad left me.
Conrad read part of it aloud.
"Your wife called me today. She is carrying four babies. Whatever has happened between you and Cecily, you need to speak to her before pride makes a decision you can never undo."
His voice broke on the last word.
Nobody moved.
He continued reading silently.
Then he sank into Howard's chair.
Felicity turned away.
Margaret began crying.
I thought that was the worst thing we would find.
It wasn't.
Beneath Margaret's envelope sat another letter.
Mine.
The original certified envelope I had mailed after the children were born.
Still sealed.
Still carrying the hospital return address.
I recognized my own handwriting immediately.
Conrad did too.
He touched the envelope but didn't open it.
For the first time since I arrived, he didn't look angry.
He looked frightened.
"How could he do this?"
Margaret wiped her eyes.
"Your father believed family problems could be managed like business problems."
I gave a bitter laugh.
"We were a problem?"
"No."
Margaret shook her head quickly.
"Howard thought Cecily was."
That made me look at her.
"What does that mean?"
Margaret hesitated.
Conrad noticed.
"Mom."
She closed her eyes.
"Your father never approved of the marriage."
"I know that."
"No, Conrad."
She opened her eyes again.
"You knew he thought Cecily wasn't from the right kind of family."
My throat tightened.
Margaret continued.
"But you didn't know what he believed she was going to cost you."
Felicity frowned.
"Cost him?"
Margaret reached into the drawer.
She removed a blue folder stamped with the Ashby Holdings logo.
Inside was a contract dated eight years earlier.
Conrad read the first page.
Then stood so abruptly that the chair hit the wall.
"What the hell is this?"
I moved closer.
Across the top were the words:
MARLOWE-ASHBY CONSOLIDATION AGREEMENT.
The Marlowes were one of the richest agricultural families in Montana.
Conrad stared at his mother.
"We never merged with Marlowe."
Margaret shook her head.
"Because their condition became impossible."
"What condition?"
She looked at me.
Then back at her son.
"Howard had promised them you would be unmarried before the agreement closed."
The room became very still.
Conrad lowered his eyes to the contract.
Attached to the final page was a handwritten note in Howard's unmistakable block handwriting.
One sentence had been underlined twice.
PREGNANCY CLAIM MUST BE RESOLVED BEFORE CONRAD RETURNS.
Conrad read it once.
Then again.
And suddenly, I understood something that frightened me more than the hidden letters.
May you like
Howard hadn't merely kept the truth from his son.
He had planned my disappearance from the Ashby family before Conrad ever walked out.
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