“Yes.”
“She’s gone.”
“I know.”
For several seconds, I just held it.
Then Brian said,
“They’re both gone, Ellen.”
I looked at him.
“You’re the one who’s here.”
He glanced toward the ceiling.
“And this house is yours now.”
After a long hesitation, I opened Mom’s letter.
It was shorter.
Dad told her about his diagnosis.
He explained that he had hidden it because he knew exactly what Mom would have done.
She would’ve reorganized her entire life around taking care of him.
He didn’t want that.
He admitted it had been the wrong choice.
He didn’t ask her to forgive him.
Then he wrote that he had loved her completely, even when he had sometimes loved her badly.
And those mistakes did not mean the love itself had been false.
Then came another line I’ll never forget.
He wrote that the house was the best thing he had ever given her after me.
It had belonged to her mother.
Someday it would belong to me.
And whenever he built something, he built it for the people he loved.
Even when he didn’t know how to say it.
I folded the letter.
Then I turned to Brian.
“You had my envelope for six months.”
“I know.”
“You thought you were protecting me.”
“Yes.”
“From something you didn’t even know was inside.”
“Yes.”
“That was the wrong decision.”
“I know.”
He looked ashamed.
“I kept waiting for the right moment.”
“And it never came.”
“No.”
Then something occurred to me.
“Dad wrote about building things.”
Brian looked at me.
“He said he built things for people he loved.”
Brian nodded.
“You rebuilt our deck.”
“Yes.”
“You caught the roof problem before it leaked.”
“Yes.”
“And you opened that wall because you thought there might be something Dad had left for me.”
Brian looked down.
“Yes.”
FULL STORY on the next page.