I tried for three years to change her mind.
Russell came from old money. The kind with portraits in hallways and family attorneys on speed dial. The kind where the house has a name, and the furniture has a history, and everyone at Christmas dinner knows which topics require a subject change.
I came from my father’s repair shop and a two-bedroom house behind a gas station on Route 9.
My dad, Jimmy, raised me alone after my mother left.
He fixed engines by day and packed my lunches at night and never once made me feel like we were missing anything, even when we were.
Russell came from old money.
He kept a worn leather folder tucked into a large, customized pocket he’d had stitched into the inside of his jacket years ago because he didn’t trust important papers to his truck.
Insurance documents, old receipts, the occasional photograph.
That folder went with him everywhere.
I should have noticed it sooner.
