She found me by the coat rack afterward and asked if I was the daughter who had lived with him during his last two years. I said yes. She looked relieved and told me my father had asked her to do something if he ever died before he could explain it himself. He had given her a sealed envelope and told her not to open it unless my mother tried to stop me from taking one particular photograph.
She said she’d kept the envelope for eight months. My father had told her that photograph was the only one he wanted me to have. He’d also told her that my mother would probably say it belonged to her. The neighbor reached into her purse and handed me the envelope. My name was written across the front in my father’s handwriting.
Inside was a short note and a key. The note said, “The picture isn’t important. What is behind it is.” I knew immediately which photograph he meant. It had been sitting in my parents’ bedroom for years, and my mother had just tried to put it back into the box.
I went home that night and waited until my mother was asleep. I took the photograph from the box and found a small keyhole in the wooden backing I’d never noticed before. The key fit. Behind the photograph was a thin compartment containing my father’s original will, a bank statement, and a letter dated eleven years earlier. The letter explained why he’d changed everything—and why he’d never told me while he was alive.
