PART 3
I looked up at Elias, my hands still trembling around the pages. “What is he talking about? What did he do?”
“I think it’s better if you read the rest of the letter first,” Elias said gently. “He was very specific about the order he wanted things explained in. I can answer whatever questions remain once you’ve finished it.”
I kept reading.
In 1975, Silas had written, your brother-in-law Roland came to me in a state I’d never seen him in before. He and Harriet had sunk everything they had into a hardware distribution business, and the whole thing was collapsing under debts neither of them had ever told anyone about, including you. Roland begged me to co-sign a loan large enough to keep the business afloat through what he swore was a temporary rough patch.
I did it. I never told you, because you were pregnant with our youngest at the time, and I didn’t want that kind of fear anywhere near you during those months. The business failed anyway, eighteen months later, and because my name was on that loan alongside Roland’s, I spent the better part of a decade quietly paying down a debt that was never actually mine to begin with.
I stopped reading for a moment, staring at the page. “He never told me any of this,” I said, mostly to myself.
“I know,” Elias said quietly. “I’ve handled Silas’s financial and legal affairs for almost thirty years. I only learned the full history myself about eighteen months ago, when he came to me with a very specific concern.”
