“She made the one in your garden.”
My eyes filled again.
Then he reached into a drawer.
“There's something else.”
He handed me a small notebook.
“What is this?”
“Thomas's.”
I opened it.
Page after page contained handwritten notes.
Not about business.
Not about investments.
About children.
Workshop needs new safety equipment.
Ask Julian about tutoring program.
Lucy wants to learn piano.
Margaret would love the mural in the back room.
I stopped.
There was my name.
Again and again.
Margaret knows people at the community college. Could she help with scholarships?
Don't ask her yet.
Tell Margaret.
Tell Margaret.
The same two words appeared on more than a dozen pages.
And then, near the end:
“I have waited so long that telling her now feels like setting fire to the life we built. But silence has already burned part of it.”
I pressed the notebook against my chest.
Thomas had wanted to tell me.
