“Let Nancy die with her secrets.”
After we hung up, I sat in my bedroom staring at the envelope.
For several minutes, I nearly listened to him.
Then I remembered Grandma slapping his wrist when he reached for the handbag all those years earlier.
I broke the seal.
The letter began simply.
“Emily, if you’re reading this, then I owe you an apology.”
Grandma explained that several years earlier, she had decided she could no longer live with what happened to my mother.
She planned to gather the family and finally tell the truth.
Before doing so, she called one of her sons.
He begged her not to say anything.
His children had grown up believing the same story as everyone else.
He argued that exposing the truth after so many years would destroy his family.
Grandma refused.
That was when he threatened her.
“You do that, and you’re out of this house.”
My hands went cold.
Years earlier, Grandma had transferred ownership of her house to him because she believed it would simplify things as she grew older.
He used the deed against her.
Grandma wrote:
“I was seventy-two with almost nothing of my own. I chose the roof over my head. I have hated myself for it every day since.”
Then came the truth.
“He was the one who took the money.”
I stopped breathing.
There was one final paragraph.
“There is one more thing you need to know, Emily. The man who threatened to put me on the street was Robert.”
I read it again.
Then again.
Uncle Robert.
The man who taught me to ride a bike.
The man who came whenever I called.
The man everyone described as the glue holding our family together.
Grandma continued:
“Robert took the money from your grandfather’s safe. Your mother loved her brother enough to accept the blame because she believed it would only be temporary. Robert allowed her to do it. Years later, when I decided to clear Carol’s name, he threatened me with the home I had trusted him with.”
Suddenly, every strange moment made sense.
Grandma striking his wrist.
Robert offering to retrieve the handbag.
His question about the twelfth envelope.
His warning not to open it.
“Let Nancy die with her secrets.”
The following morning, I asked Mom, Susan, and Linda to meet me at Grandma’s house.
Then I read the twelfth letter aloud.
