The letter continued:
You needed protection, but I knew you would never accept charity.
So I offered you the only security I could think of—a family.
Then came the part that made me cry.
Richard had never intended to take the estate for himself.
His home was being given to charity.
It would become a home for children from the same shelter where I had once lived.
And Richard had secretly created a separate fund years earlier for his future wife and children.
That fund had never been touched.
Until me.
Everything in it now belonged to Emily and me.
It was enough to ensure that neither of us would ever again face homelessness.
Then I read the final words.
You may believe I saved you, Nora.
The truth is that you and Emily saved an old man from dying without a family.
I pressed the photograph against my chest
