Every letter the woman wrote to him had been carefully preserved.
For a moment, a terrible thought filled my mind.
Harold had another family.
I sat down on the cold garage floor and covered my mouth.
“Oh, Harold,” I whispered.
I heard the sound of gravel being crunched outside.
The girl from the funeral was standing in the driveway, holding a bicycle.
“I thought maybe I’d come here,” she said.
“Did you follow me?”
She nodded without embarrassment.
“When Harold gave me the envelope, he told me it was the most important thing I would ever do.”
I looked at her closely.
“What’s your name?”
“Gini.”
“And your mother?”
“Virginia.”
The name resonated in my chest.
“Can you take me to her?”
Gini hesitated before explaining that her mother was in the hospital and needed heart surgery they couldn’t afford.
We went there together.
Virginia lay pale in a hospital bed, tubes in her arm.
“Harold used to visit us sometimes,” Gini said softly.
Later, the doctor told me the surgery was urgent, but expensive.
Standing in that hallway, I realized Harold had known exactly what I was about to discover.
Two days later, I returned with the money for the surgery.
