The Tutor and the Senator's Widow novel · Chapter 14 of 24

Chapter 14: What Alden Did

She opened the envelope in the study, at the desk, under the green lamp.

I stood by the window, because it seemed like the kind of letter a person should read alone.

"Stay," Eleanor said without turning around.

So I stayed.

She read for a long time.

Then she began again at the top, and read it aloud, in a flat voice that got lower with every line.

"'My dear girl. If you are reading this, you have learned to read page 41, and I am proud and I am sorry.'"

Her thumb moved under the next lines.

"'In the bad lumber year, the mill on the river flooded and the bank called our note. I took ninety-eight thousand dollars from the plan for six months. I put it back in five.'"

She stopped and breathed.

"'Then I took it again. Then Lowell learned how, and Beau learned from Lowell, and I let them, because a father who has done the first wrong thing cannot say the second is wrong.'"

I came closer and she held out the page without looking at me.

The last paragraph was written in a different, wobblier ink.

"'I put your name on the trustee list in January because you were the only person in this family who would read it. I could not tell you. I was a coward, and you were the one honest thing I ever married.'"

She laid the page on the blotter.

"The one honest thing," she said.

Then she picked up Alden's brass stamp and threw it at his portrait.

It missed the frame by an inch and cracked the plaster.

← Chapter 13 · All chapters · Chapter 15 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend