And just like that, the past I had packed away so carefully did not feel gone anymore. It felt close enough to touch — the marriage certificate in an old box, the faded wedding photograph, the letters tied with ribbon and stored where I had not looked in years. Albert said the rest had to be explained properly at his office, with the documents in front of me. He did not tell me the condition there on the bench. He only closed the leather case, stood up, and asked if I could be ready by morning. I sat there long after he walked away, with the courthouse clock striking the hour, breakfast dishes clattering inside the diner, and my own name still ringing in my ears like it belonged to someone I used to be. For the first time in months, the cold was not the only thing I could feel.
Let me tell you what happened next—and what condition Thomas left that changed everything.
Albert’s office was two hours away. He picked me up at dawn in a dark sedan that smelled like leather and coffee.
We drove in silence mostly. Through small towns. Past farmland. Along highways that looked like every other highway I’d seen in fifty years of moving through the South.
The office was in a renovated brick building downtown. Quiet. Professional. The kind of place where serious business happened behind closed doors.
Albert led me to a conference room. Mahogany table. Leather chairs. A window overlooking a courthouse square.
He spread documents across the table. Estate inventories. Property deeds. Business valuations. Bank statements.
