I Laughed. We Never Spoke About It Again. He Died In 2024 — Exactly 40 Years Later.
Today, A Lawyer Knocked And Gave Me
A Key. An Address In Scotland. And A Letter:
‘You Won The Bet.
Go Alone. Don’t Trust Anyone. Not Even Our Children.’
When I Arrived In Scotland And Opened The Door…”
The doorbell rang at precisely 3:17 p.m.
on a Tuesday afternoon, exactly 6 months after I buried my husband of 40 years. I was in the garden tending to the roses Bart had planted for our 20th anniversary, trying to convince myself that life could continue normally, despite the gaping hole his absence had left in my daily routine. When I opened the front door, a distinguished gentleman in an expensive charcoal suit stood on my porch, holding a leather briefcase and wearing the serious expression that lawyers seem to perfect in law school.
“Mrs. Blackwood, my name is Edmund Thornfield from Thornfield and Associates. I have some rather extraordinary instructions from your late husband that I was to deliver precisely 6 months after his passing.”
My heart skipped a beat.
Bart had been full of surprises throughout our marriage, but postumous instructions delivered by lawyers was a new development even for him. “Instructions? Mr.
Thornfield? My husband’s will was read months ago. Everything was quite straightforward.”
“Mrs.
Blackwood, this matter is separate from the standard probate proceedings. May I come in? What I need to discuss with you is of a rather unusual nature.”
I led Mr.
Thornfield into the living room, noting how he glanced around our modest home with the calculating eye of someone accustomed to appraising valuable property. Bard and I had lived comfortably, but not lavishly. He’d worked as a maritime historian, specializing in lost shipwrecks, while I’d spent my career as an art historian at the local university.
“Mrs. Blackwood, your husband came to my firm in 1985 with very specific instructions about a bequest that was to be delivered to you under particular circumstances.”
“1985? That’s nearly 40 years ago.
What kind of bequest requires four decades of waiting?”
“The kind that depends on the completion of exactly 40 years of marriage. Mrs. Blackwood, your husband was quite specific about the timing.”
I felt a strange chill as Mr.
Thornfield’s words triggered a memory I’d buried so deeply I’d almost forgotten it existed. Suddenly, I was 28 years old again, standing in our tiny first apartment, having one of those silly, newlywed conversations about the future. “If you can stand being married to me for 40 years,” Bart had said with that mischievous grin that had first attracted me to him, “I’ll give you something impossible to imagine.”
The story doesn’t end here –
it continues on the next page.
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