For a moment, I saw the ten-year-old who’d once fought a bully twice her size to protect a friend.
“Can I come in?” she whispered.
I stepped aside.
She sat on the edge of my bed, hands folded in her lap, staring at the floor. I stayed near the door, arms crossed, waiting.
“I’m sorry,” she said finally. “I’m so sorry, Mom.”
I didn’t respond.
“I never thought I’d actually do it,” she continued, voice shaking. “I just… I was looking. I was desperate. The debt… they threatened my life. I didn’t know what else to do.”
“So you decided to harm me instead,” I said quietly.
She flinched.
“I wasn’t going to actually—”
“You hired someone to follow me,” I said. “You researched how long it would take for the insurance to pay out. You looked up how to make it look like an accident.”
Her face crumpled.
“I know,” she whispered. “I know how it sounds. But I swear I never would have gone through with it. I just… I needed to know if there was a way out. A way out that involved ending your life.”
She sobbed, covering her face with her hands.
“I hate myself,” she said. “I hate who I’ve become. I don’t even recognize myself anymore.”
I stood there watching her cry, and I felt something twist inside me—anger, grief, and beneath it all, a tiny, stubborn flicker of hope.
Because Harrison had known. He’d known she’d come to this. He’d known she’d break. And he’d written letter eighteen not to destroy her, but to force her to see what she’d almost become.
“Your father gave you a chance,” I said softly.
She looked up at me, tears streaming down her face.
“He could have reported you,” I said. “He could have written you out of the will entirely. But he didn’t. He left you letter eighteen. And he left you six more nights.”
I stepped closer, my voice steady.
“Mom, you have a choice, Rosalind. You can leave right now. Walk out that door and lose everything. Not just the money—but your sisters, your mother, and whatever’s left of the person you used to be.”
I paused.
“Or you can stay. You can read the last six letters. You can face whatever your father wrote, and you can prove to me—and to yourself—that you’re not the person I saw in that email.”
She stared at me, trembling.
“I don’t deserve this,” she whispered.
“No,” I said. “You don’t. But your father believed you could still be saved. So I’m giving you the same chance he gave you.”
She stood, wiping her eyes.
“What if I can’t do it?” she whispered. “What if I fail?”
“Then at least you tried,” I said.
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