Chapter 6: The Shoebox

After the service, I stayed behind because leaving felt like admitting the world would simply continue without him… Continue Reading ⬇️

A man in a dark suit approached me.

“Are you Charlotte?”

I nodded.

“My name is Liam. I’m Mr. Wilson’s attorney. He left something for you.”

Attorney.

The word felt strange beside Charles’s name.

Liam handed me an old shoebox, soft with age, one corner held together with yellowed tape.

I opened it with trembling hands.

Inside were photographs.

The first nearly broke me.

It was me on my first day at work, sitting across from Charles at the window table, clutching my lunch bag and smiling with nervous relief.

I had not known anyone took that picture.

There was another from my promotion day, me holding the gas station cupcake like it was something precious.

Another from the week of my divorce, my face hollow, my food untouched.

Another from the day after my mother’s funeral, the half sandwich between us.

Charles had quietly saved eleven years of my life.

Not the big moments people applaud.

The small ones people miss. Continue Reading ⬇️