The Folder Everett Had Prepared in Secret
A few weeks later, Everett had a serious cardiac emergency.
He recovered, but it scared all of us.
Brielle barely left his side once he came home.
Reid came from Charlotte and stayed through Christmas.
That year, the four of us ate dinner together.
Everett raised his glass.
“To my family.”
Later, once Brielle was in bed, Everett asked me to stay in the living room.
He pulled a gray folder from a drawer.
Then said, “I want us to end our marriage.”
My whole body went cold.
My first thought was that I’d done something wrong.
“Is this because of Reid?”
Everett frowned.
“That’s exactly what worries me about you. Someone mentions leaving, and you immediately assume you failed.”
He opened the folder.
Legal papers inside.
The townhouse he’d promised after three years had already been transferred into my name.
There was also an education fund for Brielle and a separate savings account.
“Everett, we haven’t even finished the three years.”
“You fulfilled your side of our agreement the moment this house became a home again.”
I shook my head.
“I can’t repay everything you’ve done by falling in love with your nephew.”
Everett reached across the table.
“You don’t repay kindness with your life, Laurel.”
I could barely get words out.
Then he said the thing I needed most.
“I never bought a wife. I never bought a granddaughter. I certainly never bought the right to choose your future. We helped each other, and somewhere in the middle of that arrangement, we became a family.”
My eyes filled up.
“I don’t want to lose you.”
He smiled.
“You won’t. I’m just changing jobs — from pretend husband to full-time grandfather.”
I laughed through my tears.
Then, for the first time, I hugged him not as the man who’d rescued us financially, but as the father figure I’d spent most of my life missing.
