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Across a Misty Bridge
A Strange Inheritance

A Strange Inheritance

Elaine stood under the cherry blossom trees folding and unfolding the message that had brought her here. Keith had proposed to her under a tree full of cherry blossom. It was cherry blossom time again but today it seemed colder.

A BMW pulled up a few yards away. Elaine watched a slim man get out of the car carrying a large brown envelope. Cherry blossom petals fell around her.

The man looked around, saw Elaine and walked over to her. "Hi, I'm Steve Adderson. We emailed about meeting, I'm glad you can make it."

"Why did you contact me?" Elaine asked. She hadn't meant to say it. She had planned quiet dignity but the words spilled out.

"Your grandfather was Herbert Pettigrew. He did a favour for someone who..." Steve searched for the words. "My client takes the matter of debts of honour very seriously. Your grandfather died before he could repay that debt. My client felt that the debt carried on in the blood, a strange inheritance. As you are on the cusp of marriage he thought you should see this."

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Elaine barely heard the words as she stared at the envelope Steve was holding out to her. She had suspected but she didn't want to have proof. Her fingers felt almost numb as she opened it and pulled out the pictures.

There were a lot of pictures. One stood out, one burned itself into her eyes. Keith was having a quiet drink in a bar with the fair haired woman who was in all the pictures with him. It was the least graphic of them all. They were not physically close, they were not touching, but the love in their eyes said more than any picture taken through a bedroom window. Cherry blossom petals fell onto the pictures.

"Wait, who sent you?" Elaine called after Steve but he had walked briskly away and climbed into the car. Elaine leant against the cherry tree and started to cry.