And finally, the cedar box.
“Sloan?”
He stood quickly.
“What are you doing here?”
Before I could answer, Eleanor rose from the head of the table.
Her eyes filled with tears the moment she saw the children.
“Sloan?”
She stepped forward slowly.
“You came?”
Then she looked at Lily and Leo.
“You finally brought them?”
Julian immediately moved between us.
“Mom, wait.”
Then he turned toward me.
“Sloan, we should talk outside.”
“No.”
His face tightened.
“This isn’t the place.”
“It’s exactly the place.”
I walked around him and set the cedar box in front of Eleanor.
She stared at it.
Then at me.
“Eleanor,” I said, “I need you to hear something before Julian interrupts again.”
The entire room was silent.
“I never refused a single invitation from you.”
Her expression changed.
“I never kept Lily or Leo away from you.”
Julian stepped forward.
“Sloan—”
I continued.
“For eleven years, Julian told us you didn’t want us here. He said this gathering was only for his ‘real family.’ He told the children that bringing spouses and grandchildren would ruin the tradition.”
Someone at the table gasped.
Eleanor stared at Julian.
I opened the cedar box.
“These are your invitations.”
She reached inside.
Her own handwriting stared back at her.
Envelope after envelope.
Most of them still sealed.
Her hands began to tremble.
“I wrote these.”
“I know.”
She looked at me.
“I thought you were refusing to answer.”
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“I never received them.”
Julian spoke quickly.
“She’s twisting this. Those are old letters. You don’t understand the context.”
Darcy stepped forward.
“My name is Darcy Sterling. I represent Sloan.”
Julian froze.
Darcy placed a folder on the table.
“Formal divorce proceedings were initiated this afternoon.”
The room went completely silent.
Eleanor continued looking through the letters.
One invitation.
Then another.
Then another.
Finally, she looked at her son.
“Did you hide these?”
Julian didn’t answer.
His father stood.
“Julian.”
Still nothing.
“Tell us she’s wrong.”
Julian looked around the table.
The confident expression he had worn when we entered was gone.
“I just wanted family time to stay the way it always was.”
Eleanor stared at him.
“You told me Sloan didn’t want us seeing the children.”
Julian swallowed.
“You kept pressuring me.”
“To see my grandchildren.”
“You don’t understand. Sloan never fit in here.”
I felt Leo move closer to me.
Eleanor’s face changed completely.
Then she walked past Julian.
She knelt in front of Lily and Leo.
“I am so sorry.”
Lily looked at her carefully.
Eleanor’s voice broke.
“I wrote to you every year. I bought birthday presents. Christmas presents. I kept thinking maybe one day your mother would change her mind.”
“She didn’t know,” Leo said.
“I know that now.”
Lily reached into her coat pocket.
She pulled out the tiny pink shovel.
“Grandma?”
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