Every penny he earned from the shop, and from some quiet, careful investments over the decades, he poured into a private trust fund.

He lived simply, spent almost nothing on himself, and let the trust grow.” I looked at the deed wrapped in oilskin, and the leather notebook, and I began to understand that the frail dying stranger I had married had been, in truth, a man of substance, of history, of a carefully preserved and quietly enormous life, and that he had chosen, for reasons I did not yet understand, to hand all of it to me.

Chapter 9 — Why Me

“Why did he marry me, Arthur?” I asked, looking up from the red dress.