I sat down.
My hands were trembling.
Then he opened one of his desk drawers and pulled out another envelope.
“This one was for me.”
He opened it and read only one line aloud.
“If Emily ever ends up in your classroom, please don’t tell her immediately. Make sure she’s ready first.”
I started crying.
The man I had feared for weeks had actually been trying to fulfill a promise he had made to my mother almost twenty years earlier.
But the biggest surprise was still waiting.
At the bottom of the box was a small car key.
I looked at them.
Professor Hayes smiled.
“Your mother drove a white vintage car on her first day of college. It was sold years ago.”
He paused.
“I found it.”
That afternoon, the three of us walked out of the university together.
Parked outside was a beautifully restored white car.
