They Granted Her 100 Wishes And Forgot I Was Dying Too novel · Chapter 17 of 24

Chapter 17: The Trunk

Deborah ran the auxiliary board meeting every Thursday at ten, and she never missed one.

At ten past, Winifred let the four of us into the main house through the pantry door.

She had a ring of old keys in her cardigan pocket, and she took the attic stairs one hand on the rail, one on my elbow.

"My knees are seventy-four, not dead," she said. "Mind the third step."

Cora came behind me, and Tiernan behind her, carrying a flashlight from the Bureau bag.

Cora's number glowed in the dark of the stairwell.

It said 39.

The attic smelled of cedar and old paper.

Winifred walked straight to the far corner, past the Christmas boxes and a dressmaker's dummy, and pulled a sheet off a small blue trunk with brass corners.

It had a padlock.

"I've had the key since the year she bought it," Winifred said. "She never asked for it back, and I never gave her the chance."

The lock opened with a dry click.

Inside lay a folded yellow blanket, a pair of knitted socks no bigger than my thumb, and a hospital bracelet in a plastic sleeve.

The bracelet said Fairclough, Baby Girl, and a date in March.

I picked it up, and my hand shook.

"That's yours," Winifred said gently. "Your mother wore it on her wrist for a year."

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