My Stepfather Raised Five Children Who Weren’t His — After the Funeral, We Each Received a Letter Never Intended for the Others to Read

Then she hung up.

“You don’t know Thomas the way I do.”

Now, in the cemetery, rain sliding off Susan’s umbrella, a man in a charcoal coat approached from the side path.

“I’m Mr. Elwood, Thomas’s attorney. He made me promise that if anything ever happened to him, I was to ask all five of you to come to my office after the service. He left something for each of you.”

Susan tightened her grip on the umbrella.

Mara asked, “What did he leave?”

The lawyer looked at us one by one before answering, “A box.”

“He left something for each of you.”