Victoria laughed.
It was a short laugh, but it changed the feeling in the room.
I turned toward her.
She did not appear surprised by what the lawyer had said.
If anything, she seemed to recognize something familiar in her father's final instructions.
“That sounds like Dad,” she said. “He never missed a chance to make a scene.”
I looked at her for a moment.
Then I looked down again.
A scene.
That was how Victoria saw it.
Not a private message from a dead husband to his wife.
Not something that might be painful to open.
Just another example of Russell doing things his own way.
Perhaps she understood him better than I did.
She was his daughter.
I was his wife.
Those were two different relationships, and I knew they had given us different views of the same man.
I thought about the thirty years between Russell and me.
It was not a small difference.
I had known that from the beginning.
I had known about his fortune too.
Those facts had followed me into the marriage.
Now they had followed me into the room where his lawyer was carrying out his final wishes.
I could not separate them from the question in front of me.
Why had Russell wanted Victoria there?
Why had he insisted on having his children present?
And why had he made me responsible for opening something he could easily have explained in advance?
I looked toward the lawyer again.
He had delivered the instructions.
He had not told me what the object contained.
That was deliberate.
Russell had wanted me to find out for myself.
I began to understand how carefully the moment had been arranged.
The lawyer could not simply announce its contents.
Victoria could not open it in my place.
I had to do it.
And whatever I found, the others would be there to see my reaction.
I did not like that part.
I wanted a moment alone to decide what I felt.
Russell had not given me one.
Still, I could not put all of my discomfort on him.
I had entered our marriage with expectations of my own.
Money had mattered to me.
Looking back, I could hardly deny it.
But that did not tell me what was hidden behind the brass latch.
It did not explain his instructions.
It did not tell me what Victoria already understood about her father's habit of making important moments difficult.
I kept hearing her laugh.
Then I remembered the lawyer's words.
Russell wanted me to open it.
His children had to stay.
I had no answer for why.
Only a choice about whether to obey the request he had left behind.
Click here to continue reading: PART 3: I Reached for the Brass Latch While Russell’s Family Watched, Knowing Whatever He Had Left Was Meant for My Hands
I Thought My Husband’s Death Would Finally Answer My Questions, but His Lawyer Had One Last Instruction I Never Expected
Part 2 of 8
