Chapter 9 - THE PHOTOGRAPH OF MY DEAD HUSBAND
Three weeks later, Samuel Price arrived carrying audit boxes.
Eleanor’s older brother.
A retired accountant who had reviewed Bennett Foods during its first ownership dispute.
Mom had told Mark he died years ago.
He hadn’t.
Samuel opened the boxes.
Original ledgers.
Canceled checks.
Share certificates.
Draft agreements.
Then one amendment dated three months before Dad died.
It dealt with the unresolved ownership reconciliation.
One name stopped me.
LILY BENNETT.
My daughter.
“That’s impossible.”
Samuel shook his head.
“The amendment was added later.”
“Why would Dad give Lily rights connected to Eleanor?”
Samuel looked toward Rachel.
Rachel went pale.
Then toward Mom.
Mom was already crying.
“Why Lily?”
Samuel answered:
“Because Robert discovered something about Michael.”
My husband.
Dead four years.
“What does Michael have to do with Bennett Foods?”
Samuel closed one ledger.
“More than Mark ever wanted you to know.”
Then he placed an old photograph on the table.
Michael.
Younger.
Maybe twenty-five.
Standing beside Mark.
And Rachel.
I forgot how to breathe.
The photograph had been taken years before I supposedly met Michael for the first time at a Columbus hospital fundraiser.
I looked at Mark.
“You knew my husband?”
He said nothing.
“Before me?”
Nothing.
I turned to Rachel.
“You knew him?”
Her eyes filled.
“Yes.”
The room seemed to change shape.
“Then why did both of you pretend you didn’t?”
Rachel looked at the photograph.
“Because Michael wasn’t originally supposed to marry you.”
I stared at her.
“What does that mean?”
Mark stood.
“We’re done.”
Andrew’s voice cut across the room.
“Sit down.”
Mark actually did.
That frightened me more than if he had shouted.
Rachel looked at me.
“Michael was working for Mark.”
I could hear my pulse.
“Doing what?”
May you like
“Finding my mother.”
And suddenly the man I had mourned for four years became part of a story that started before I knew his name.
