I turned and saw Susan standing at the back under a red umbrella, pale and still in her black coat. I'd left her a message about Thomas's passing, just in case she chose to come.
Thomas had waited for her until the end. Three nights before his heart gave out, he told me, "Leave the porch light on, Pumpkin. Just in case."
"Go talk to her, Christina," Noah said softly. "Before she slips out again."
Thomas had waited for her until the end.
Susan looked older than 20 should allow. Not physically. More like life had sanded something down in her.
"You came," I whispered.
"He's still my father," she answered. "The one who raised us all."
Behind me, Michael and Mara were already bristling. Noah had two kids of his own now, and Thomas used to pack snacks in little containers for them even after his hands started shaking. To Noah, loyalty had peanut butter crackers in it.
Mara joined us. "That's all you have to say? He waited for you for years, Susan."
Michael added, "He sent cards. He called. He left the porch light on every single night."
"He's still my father."
Something flickered across Susan's face, fast and painful.
"I did what I had to do, guys," she said.
That made Mara turn away in disgust.
I had seen Thomas cry only a handful of times, and one of those times was the weekend I found him alone on the porch with Susan's note in his hand.
"I'm leaving," the note said. "I'm staying with a friend. I need to build my life on my own terms."
That was two years earlier, one week after Susan's 18th birthday dinner.
"I did what I had to do, guys."
I had asked Thomas then, "What do you mean she's gone?"
He handed me the note and looked out at the yard. "I mean, she's gone."
"Why?"
"Not mine to tell, Christie."
Later, when Susan finally answered one of my calls, I shouted first and listened second. I told her that she had wrecked our father.
Susan only said, "You don't know Thomas the way I do."
Then she hung up.
"You don't know Thomas the way I do."
***
Now, in the cemetery, as rain dripped from Susan's umbrella, a man in a charcoal coat approached from the side path.
"I'm Mr. Elwood, Thomas's attorney. He made me promise that if anything ever happened to him, I was to ask all five of you to come to my office after the service. He left something for each of you."
Susan's grip tightened on the umbrella handle.
Mara asked, "What did he leave?"
The lawyer looked at all of us, then said, "A box."
"He left something for each of you."
***
Mr. Elwood's office smelled of coffee, old paper, and men who alphabetize grief for a living.
