The Reading of the Will
The Fine Print

The First Wife

August 25, 2026 · Part 5 of 10 · 2 min

Delphine met her within the hour, in the parking lot of a church neither of them attended, engine running, like she still wasn't sure this was safe.

She handed Naomi a photograph through the window — soft-focused, decades old, the corners gone soft from handling. A young woman with dark, wind-blown hair, laughing at something off-camera, a toddler on her hip who could only be Grant.

"Her name was — I want to say Marisol," Delphine started, then frowned at herself. "God, I'm not even sure anymore. Corinne made sure nobody said it out loud for twenty years. Names stop feeling real when nobody's allowed to use them."

Naomi stared at the photo. At the woman's eyes — Grant's eyes, she realized, the exact same warm brown, the exact same crease at the corner when he was about to laugh.

"Is she alive?" Naomi asked.

"I believe so. There were whispers a few years back — someone spotted her at a fundraiser two towns over, going by a different last name. I never confirmed it. I was too much of a coward to try."

"Where?"

"Millbrook. That's all I have. A town, not an address." Delphine reached over and closed Naomi's fingers around the photograph. "Keep it. I should have burned it years ago out of self-preservation, and instead I kept it because some part of me always hoped somebody would ask."

Naomi looked down at the photo one more time before tucking it into her coat.

"Delphine — if I go looking for her, and Corinne finds out—"

"Then you'll know exactly how far she's willing to go to protect this family's secrets," Delphine said. "Which, frankly, you're going to need to know anyway. Before Thursday. Before you sign anything."

Naomi drove home with the photograph on the passenger seat, glancing at it at every red light, memorizing a stranger's face like it might hold the answer to her own future.

She had a name that might be wrong, a town with no address, and less than fourteen hours before the drawer with the key would open in front of her and expect her signature.

Her phone buzzed. A text from Corinne.

Don't forget — Thursday, 4 p.m. sharp. I've moved up the fitting, too. There's a lot to finish before you're truly one of us.

Naomi read it twice, and for the first time, the word "truly" felt less like a promise and more like a threat.

Continue the story Part 6: The Warning →

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