That’s when I started crying.
Not because I had inherited something.
But because Richard knew the nastiest truth about how our relationship had started…
and yet I believed that the way it ended mattered more.
Three months later, I moved into the small house by the lake.
I kept the wooden box on my bedroom dresser.
The brass key is still inside, although I don’t need it anymore.
And every time I remember Richard saying that I would get exactly what I deserved, I finally understand what he meant.
He didn’t leave me his fortune.
He left me a home,
and still become something real.
