“Whenever you’re ready.”
I looked at him.
“But next time we look together.”
“Together.”
“And if you find anything first?”
“I tell you.”
“Immediately.”
“Yes.”
We sat quietly.
Then I remembered something else from Dad’s letter.
“He was right about you.”
Brian frowned.
“My father.”
“He never told you he liked me.”
“No.”
“But he wrote it.”
Brian waited.
“He said some people build things for the cafar people they love because they’re not always good at saying the words.”
Brian looked toward the wall.
Then at me.
“That sounds familiar.”
“It does.”
I reached across the table.
“But you still have to say the words.”
He nodded.
Then he said them.
“I love you.”
No speech.
No performance.
Just Brian.
“I love you too.”
Then I pointed toward the living room.
“And next time, tell me before you remove four feet of our house.”
He laughed.
“I promise.”
The house had been standing since 1952.
More than seventy years.
It had held birthdays.
Christmases.
Arguments.
Repairs.
Hidden money.
Letters.
Secrets.
People trying to love each other well.
And people sometimes getting it wrong.
The house was still standing.
Still holding all of it.48
And when we were ready to discover what else remained inside those walls, we would do it together.
That, I finally understood, was the point.
Not simply that the house had lasted.
But that our family could too.
FULL STORY on the next page.