Chapter 1: A Marriage of Convenience
TITLE: The Box She Left Me
I married Evelyn for survival.
At twenty-five, I had nothing—no home, no savings, no future. Just a pickup truck parked behind a grocery store and debts that grew heavier every day. Evelyn was seventy-one, a quiet widow with soft eyes and a small, warm house that smelled like cinnamon and old books.
She offered me stability. I offered her company.
That was the deal… at least in my head.
I told myself it wasn’t wrong. I wasn’t hurting her. I smiled when I had to, sat with her during dinner, listened to her stories about a life I never cared to understand.
But inside, I was waiting.
Waiting for time to do what time always does.
Evelyn, though… she never treated me like a transaction.
May you like
She treated me like I mattered.
And I hated how little that meant to me back then.
