“She made me promise you’d open this right here,” Wade said.

“Why here on the church steps?” I asked.

“She said you ought to be standing on the ground you spent twenty-three years serving,” he said.

Wade pushed his silver-framed glasses up with his thumb and handed me the envelope.

I worked my fingernail under the cracked wax seal and drew out three folded sheets of yellowed paper.

The first sheet carried an official notary stamp from Marion County, dated October 14, 1979.

At the bottom of the last page, two signatures sat next to each other in faded black ink beneath a heavy bold heading.