He set the briefcase on my pastry display like it weighed a hundred pounds. Customers were still sitting by the window drinking coffee, Christmas music playing overhead, but suddenly all I could hear was my own heartbeat.
“He found out he was dying,” the boy said quietly. “Three months ago.”
My hands froze around the receipt book.
“He said I had to bring this to you myself.”
Inside the case were folders. Old bank statements. Property deeds. Loan papers. Every debt my mother spent fifteen years paying off. Across the top of one folder, in my father’s handwriting, were the words: PAID IN FULL.
Then I found the envelope.
My name on the front.
The same handwriting from the sticky note he left on our kitchen counter when he disappeared.
The teenager looked at me and swallowed hard. “There’s something else,” he said. “He didn’t leave because he wanted another life.”
I stared at him.
Then he pulled a newspaper clipping from his jacket and slid it beside the briefcase.