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they didn't have Harold's two prime pieces of motivation, either. For one, he wanted to live long enough to see his daughters together and reconciled for once in their lives.
    And the other?  With one major exception, he had lived his whole life as an honest, upright, law abiding man.
    Before Norm Higgins planted him down in Evergreen Cemetery, Harold Patterson wanted his reputation back.
    He had weighed all the risks. If he fought Holly in court and lost, he risked losing everything. If he settled, he handed over half the ranch to Holly-to the prodigal daughter who had turned her back on all of them for thirty-some-odd years-while dispossessing Ivy, the nonprodigal with the ranch, who had cared for her invalid mother through years of steady decline that led inevitably into helpless insanity, who had always put other people's needs and wants before her own.
    What would happen to Ivy if the Rocking P was cut in half or disappeared altogether?  Like the baby King Solomon threatened to divide in the Bible, a ranch the size of the Patterson spread was of no more use cut in half than half a child would be. It took the whole ranch to make a living, to make a life.
    Returning to the table with the box, Sandra Henning easily turned her key in the lock. Harold's hand trembled as he attempted to insert his own.
    It took three separate tries before the key clicked home. The long metal drawer flipped open, and the old man slumped back into his chair.
    By eleven o'clock, Harold had sorted through all the papers in the drawer. In one stack, he put the papers that would stay in the safety-deposit box-the insurance policies he didn't need in order to change the beneficiaries, the few ribbon wrapped letters he and Emily had exchanged during those rare times when he was actually away from home.
    In the other stack were the things Harold would need to take with him to Burton Kimball's office, will and the deed to the Rocking P.
    At the very bottom of the drawer, Harold found the last item, the single yellowed envelope that he and Emily had together solemnly sealed away years earlier. Emily was the one who had insisted on a greasy candle-wax seal that now allowed some of the loopy, old-fashioned writing from the letter itself to bleed through onto the outside surface of the envelope. It was almost as if the words themselves were eager to escape their paper bound prison.
    Harold could have broken the seal and opened it, but he didn't. There was no need. The faded pencil-written words were committed to memory, seared into his heart even more clearly than they were into his brain. He remembered them all; was incapable of forgetting even one.
    He sat holding the envelope and wondering what he should do with it now. He had kept it all these years because he had promised Emily he would; because she had begged him to, and because he had been afraid he might someday need it. Now, though, if his gamble paid off, if he could go to Holly and get her to listen to reason, maybe he could finally destroy the letter and be done with it. Maybe he could go to his grave taking the letter's ugly secret with him.
    Finally, after many agonizing moments of indecision, he placed the fragile, unopened envelope in the stack with the insurance policies and placed the whole pile back in the drawer. If Holly and Ivy didn't take his word for it, didn't accept his version of what had happened, then it would be time to remove the letter from the safety of its hiding place. By then he would know if he was taking the letter out to show it to his daughters or to burn it once and for all.
    Pushing back his chair, Harold stood and signaled to Sandy Henning. "I'm ready to go now he said.
    When she came to retrieve Harold's safety deposit box, Sandy peered closely at Harold through her red-framed bifocals. "Are you sure you're all right, Mr. Patterson?  Your color's not all that good."
    Harold stood and picked up his hat. "I'm fine, Miz Henning," he said, carefully replacing the