Richard explained that he had helped fund the shelter’s renovation and had visited on the day that photograph was taken.
When I told him during my interview which shelter I had first lived in, he recognized me as the frightened little girl he had once held.
Then he had overheard my conversation with my landlord.
You needed protection, but I knew your pride would never allow you to accept charity. So I offered you the only security I could think of—a family.
Tears blurred the page.
The house is gone, but I have established a separate fund many years earlier for my future wife and children. I have never married. I have never become a father. My humanitarian work consumed my life, and the fund remained untouched.
Until you.
Everything in that fund now belongs to you and Emily. It is more than enough to ensure that neither of you will ever be homeless or afraid again.
You may believe I saved you, Nora. The truth is that you and Emily saved an old man from dying without a family.
Thank you for letting me love you both.
I pressed the photograph against my chest and cried.
Richard had given his home to children who had none.
And for the little stray kitten he had once held in his arms, he had left enough to finally build a permanent home of her own.
