I sat frozen.
“She bought those gifts for her children over several months. She wanted them to have something from her for every important moment.”
“Why didn’t she tell me?” I asked.
“She wanted to. But she said you’d already survived too much. She couldn’t make you watch her fade. She asked me to send the package a week before Lily’s birthday, so you’d have time to prepare.”
He handed me a small box. Inside was a delicate gold locket. I opened it—inside was a photo of the children hugging me, taken last summer at the lake. Darla had been behind the camera.
I broke down completely.
Finally, I asked, “Did her husband know?”
“No. She hadn’t told him. She planned to divorce him when they got back. He didn’t know any of it. The crash ended everything before she could say a word.”
I drove home in a daze. Why had Darla wanted me to have the package instead of her husband, when he was still alive?
At the bottom of her letter, in small handwriting, was one more line:
