He Married My Best Friend While I Gave Birth, So I Left novel · Chapter 29 of 48

Chapter 29: The Letter

The lawyer drove away, and I read the letter under the porch light with Byron's chin on my shoulder.

It was one page of pale blue paper, in Eleanor's careful script.

It said: I am told a young man has come to the farm.

It said: I have known of him since the day he was born.

It said: I would like to meet my grandson.

It said: A visit at Marysville on any Sunday would do.

It said: Under his grandfather's trust, the voting shares pass to the first grandchild.

It said: That is Calvin, and not the child Lacey has been keeping.

It said: For his protection, I ask to be named his trustee in place of Mrs. Mercer.

It was signed Eleanor, with a flourish.

I read it a second time, and then I handed it to Byron.

"She's had him on a list for sixteen years," I said. "And now she's asking to be his guardian of the money."

"The answer is no," said Byron.

"I know."

"No to the visit and no to the trust. She doesn't see him. She doesn't write him, and she doesn't get a dollar of his."

"Agreed," I said. "But I want us to set something."

"What?"

"From now on we don't promise Cal anything unless we've both said it first. Not a ride, not a visit. Nothing. He's been told too many things by too many adults who didn't ask each other."

Byron looked at me for a moment.

"Agreed," he said.

The screen door creaked behind us.

Cal stood in the doorway in his socks, with Poppy's spit-up on his shoulder and his phone in his hand.

"Who's it from?" he asked.

"A lawyer," said Byron. "Go to bed."

"It's from her, isn't it? Mrs. Angell."

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