Chapter 2 - The Blue Envelope
Hours later, while Savannah slept fitfully, I crept back into the living room and opened her phone. I expected to find a few scattered entries, but instead, I found dates stretching back three full years. Burns, bruises, missed meals, and chilling threats. Then my thumb froze on an entry from the first year my mother had moved in with us.
September 21, 11:47 p.m. — Bernice told me Christopher can never know what happened to his father. Said if I tell him, she’ll make sure I lose everything.
My blood ran cold. My father had died when I was nineteen—a sudden heart attack, or so I had always been told. I kept reading. Savannah had documented that Bernice once got drunk and confessed my father had planned to leave her after discovering missing family funds. Two days later, he was dead.
There was no dramatic conclusion in the notes, just fragments of paralyzing fear. But one line jumped out: She keeps a blue envelope in the old sewing box. Says it proves nobody can touch her.
I searched the guest room and found the sewing box hidden beneath winter coats. Inside lay buttons, old photographs, and a weathered blue envelope with my name scrawled across the front in a handwriting that wasn’t my mother’s. It was my father’s.
My hands trembled as I unfolded the letter. Son, if you are reading this, your mother finally failed to destroy it. The room spun. The letter detailed how my father had gathered undeniable proof that Bernice forged signatures, drained accounts, and fabricated debts. He warned that if anything happened to him, I should never trust the official story.
“Chris?”
I spun around. Savannah stood in the doorway, pale and shaking, one hand resting protectively on her swollen stomach.
“You knew about this?” I choked out.
“Not all of it,” tears spilled down her cheeks. “Your mother said she had something that would destroy us both.”
May you like
Before I could ask what she meant, Savannah’s phone buzzed aggressively on the nightstand. She glanced at the screen and dropped it as if it were burning her. I snatched it up. A single unknown number had sent one sentence:
Ask your wife who the baby’s biological father really is.
