I was driving to the abortion clinic because of poverty and debts, but turned back for my ID. In the mailbox was a letter: my childless aunt, whom I hadn’t seen in 20 years, left me her entire inheritance, but with one STRANGE condition…

I turned the car so sharply the tires squealed. The drive home felt half as long. I wasn’t crying anymore.

I just drove, following some inner impulse. Thoughts tangled in my head. What would I tell the clinic? That I changed my mind? Or just reschedule? And what about Brandon? That thought was the heaviest.

I pictured his face again, his logical arguments, his quiet pressure. And for the first time in days, I felt not despair, but anger. Anger at him, at his weakness masked as care.

And at myself for letting him break me so easily. I pulled into our sleepy driveway and parked in the usual spot. I didn’t want to go up to the apartment.

That meant sinking back into hopelessness. Getting out of the car, I absently stuck my hand into our old, dented mailbox. Usually, it was just bills and junk mail.

But today, my fingers hit something thick and unusually heavy. I pulled out a large envelope of expensive cream paper. In calligraphic script, it had my address and name.

In the corner was a law firm’s stamp, and the sender’s name made me go cold. Matilda Hawthorne. My great-aunt.

A woman I hadn’t seen in almost 20 years and thought long gone from this world. I stood in the middle of the driveway, clutching this heavy, fancy envelope, unable to move. Matilda Hawthorne, my grandmother’s cousin.

In my memory, she was a vague, almost fairy-tale figure from deep childhood. A tall, stern woman with gray hair in a tight bun and piercing but not mean eyes—more sad. I’d seen her only once, when I was about seven, at my grandmother’s funeral.

She spoke to almost no one, kept to herself, and Mom whispered not to go near her, saying Aunt Matilda had a tough personality. And now, after 20 years, she appeared from nowhere in this letter from a law firm. My heart pounded in my throat, fingers chilled as if it were winter, not a warm fall day.

I slowly climbed the stairs but didn’t go into our apartment. I sat right on the cold steps in the hallway, like I did as a kid when I wanted to hide from the world. My hands shook so much I could barely tear the envelope.

The paper was thick, with watermarks, tearing with a noble crunch. Inside were two sheets. The first, printed on official letterhead with a seal at the bottom.

It was a notary’s notice, dry and formal. It stated that Hawthorne Matilda, my great-aunt, had passed away two weeks ago at age 89, and per her last will and testament, all her property—a three-bedroom apartment in the old city center, a country house with land, and all bank account funds—passed fully to me. I reread those lines several times, but my brain refused to process them.

This couldn’t be. Some mistake, a ridiculous joke. We never communicated; she didn’t even know I existed, I was sure.

Why me? I set aside the official sheet and took the second. It was handwritten in faded blue ink, in an angular script I vaguely remembered from a signature on an old card. It was her letter.

Hello, Ashley dear, it began. If you’re reading this, I’m already gone. Don’t grieve for me.

I’ve lived a long, though very lonely life. Forgive me for never seeking you out. After your grandmother’s death, my only kin, I walled myself off from the world.

I thought it would be easier. Now I see what self-deception that was. Old age isn’t scary for wrinkles, but for the silence in a house where no one awaits your call.

I know you’re going through a hard time now. Don’t ask how. Old lonely women have ways of hearing news about those they care for.

I know you’re strong; you’re our Hawthorne stock. But even the strongest need help sometimes. I couldn’t become a mother; that’s my greatest pain and mistake.

And I want my departure to be the start of your new life. I’m leaving you everything I have. It’s not much, but enough so you’ll never fear tomorrow.

I have just one request, not a condition, but an old woman’s dream. I know you’re carrying new life under your heart. Save it, please…