He wrote that he was sorry he wouldn’t be there to see Grant’s face. He wrote that pain was weather, not geography—that I was not required to live inside it forever. He wrote that the yacht was mine now and that when I was ready, I should take her out beyond the harbor and let the wind do some of the talking.
At the bottom, beneath All my love, Dad, there was a postscript.
P.S. Check the safe in my study. Combination is your birthday. I left something else for you.
I read that line twice.
Because my father had already shattered my funeral. Which meant whatever was waiting in that safe had to be something even bigger.
And suddenly, in the middle of all that sunlight, I realized the funeral might only have been the opening move.
Part 4
By the time the reception started in the parish hall, I was already leaving.
People tried to stop me—clients of my father’s with damp eyes, women from the auxiliary committee holding paper plates of tea sandwiches, cousins who wanted details before they offered condolences—but I didn’t have room for anybody else’s curiosity. Grief had one hand around my throat. Adrenaline had the other. The only thing I wanted was the safe in my father’s study.