Then I smiled.
“Because Eleanor taught me something.”
“What?”
“That a person’s life doesn’t end when they disappear.”
I touched the plaque.
“Sometimes, the love they leave behind keeps them here.”
And as I sat beneath the tree Eleanor had asked me to plant, I finally understood the truth behind the lawyer’s words.
She hadn’t chosen me by accident.
She had spent decades waiting for one last chance to tell me:
“I was there all along. I loved you all along. And I was so sorry I didn’t know how to come home.”
