My parents missed the funeral of my husband and two children because it was my sister’s birthday.

For a moment, I was back in the hospital chapel, hearing laughter behind him while I tried to explain that my entire life had changed.

I rested my palm against the wall.

I did not open the door.

“Claire, we know you’re home.”

That was my mother.

Then Melissa.

“Can we please talk?”

I closed my eyes.

The strange thing was that I wasn’t angry in the way I had imagined anger should feel.

I wasn’t shaking.

I wasn’t planning some speech.

I simply did not want them inside.

The house still belonged, in my mind, to Ethan and Lily and Noah. It held their photographs, their books, Ethan’s ridiculous collection of chipped coffee mugs. It held the faint pencil marks on the kitchen doorway where we had measured the children every birthday.

My family had chosen not to stand beside me when I buried them.

I could not let them walk into this place simply because my name had appeared beside a dollar amount.

I picked up my phone and called Margaret.

She answered before the second ring.

“Claire?”

“They’re here.”

Silence.

Then, calmly, “Your parents?”

“And Melissa.”

“Do you want us to come?”

Ethan’s parents lived twenty minutes away.

Six months earlier, I would have said yes immediately.

But something had changed.

“No,” I said.

The word surprised me.

Margaret seemed to understand.

“All right.”

“I think I need to do this myself.”

“Then do it your way.”

That was the difference between Margaret and my mother.

Margaret never told me what I was supposed to feel.

She never said Ethan would want me to move on, or that Lily and Noah were in a better place, or that everything happened for a reason.

She simply stayed.

Sometimes staying was the most generous thing a person could do.

I walked to the front door and opened it three inches, leaving the chain fastened.

My parents and Melissa stood on the porch.

Dad wore his navy winter coat. Mom had a scarf wrapped around her neck. Melissa looked strangely formal, as if she had come directly from work.

All three smiled when they saw me.

Not happy smiles.

Careful ones.

“Hi, sweetheart,” Mom said.

I could not remember the last time she had called me that.

“What do you want?”

Her expression flickered.

Dad cleared his throat.

“We wanted to see how you’re doing.”

I glanced toward the street.

Their car was parked badly along the curb, one wheel nearly touching the grass.

“You could have done that yesterday.”

“Claire,” he said.

“Or last week.”

“We called.”

“Twice in six months.”

Melissa folded her arms against the cold.

“We didn’t know whether you wanted space.”

I looked at her.

“You invited me to your engagement party.”

She blinked.

“Yes.”

“Three weeks after I buried my family.”

Her gaze dropped.

Mom stepped forward.

“We handled things badly.”

The sentence hung there.

Handled things badly.

As if they had forgotten to send a Christmas card.

“Why are you here today?”

Dad frowned.

“Because we saw the article.”

There it was.

At least he had not tried to hide it.

“And?”

“We were shocked,” Melissa said.

“By the foundation?”

“No. By everything.”

“Everything being eighteen-point-seven million dollars?”

Mom inhaled sharply.

“That isn’t fair.”

I almost laughed.

Fair.

For six months, I had learned to distrust that word.

Life had not been fair to Ethan, who had left the house carrying travel mugs and complaining about traffic.

It had not been fair to Lily, who had packed two library books because she planned to read during the drive.

It had not been fair to Noah, who had refused to wear matching socks.

Fair had stopped meaning much to me.

“I’m tired,” I said. “You should go home.”

Dad moved closer.

“We really need to discuss this.”

“What?”

“The settlement.”

The chain on the door suddenly felt very important.

“What about it?”

He lowered his voice.

“Not out here.”

“Then we won’t discuss it.”

“Claire.”

“No.”

His face changed.

Only slightly.

My father had never been a man who shouted. His disapproval lived in tightened lips, pauses, and quiet sentences that made disagreement feel childish.

“You’re making this more difficult than necessary.”

Something inside me almost returned to its old position.

Almost.

For most of my life, Dad had possessed an invisible authority over our family. Mom adapted around him. Melissa avoided upsetting him. I learned to anticipate what he wanted before he said it.

Then I remembered Margaret’s words.

Do it your way.

“I’m not discussing the settlement with you.”

Melissa looked uncomfortable.

“Dad, maybe we should—”

“We came all this way.”

“You live thirty-eight minutes away,” I said.

No one answered.

I closed the door.

My hands began shaking only after the lock clicked.

I leaned against the wood and listened.

For several seconds, they remained on the porch.

Then I heard footsteps.

A car door closed.

Another.

The engine started.

I stood there until the sound disappeared.

Only then did I cry.

Not because they had left.

Because for the first time in my life, I had allowed them to.

The next morning, I met with Daniel Cho, the attorney who had handled the civil case.

Daniel was in his early forties, patient and almost aggressively organized. His office contained fewer personal objects than any room I had ever seen.

He slid a folder across the desk.

“The settlement funds will be transferred through the trust structure we discussed. The foundation allocation is separate.”

I nodded.

Nearly twelve million dollars would remain after legal fees, taxes, medical obligations, and the initial foundation endowment.

The number still felt fictional.

“What happens if relatives ask me for money?”

Daniel looked up.

“They probably will.”

“What do I say?”

“That depends on what you want.”

“I don’t know what I want.”

“That’s an answer too.”

He closed the folder.

“You are not obligated to make financial decisions simply because someone asks.”

I stared at the edge of his desk.

“My father already wants to discuss it.”

“Did he say why?”

“No.”

Daniel waited.

He had a way of letting silence become useful.

Finally, I said, “I keep wondering whether I’m being unfair.”

“To whom?”

“My family.”

His eyebrows rose slightly.

“They skipped the funeral.”

“I know.”

“They barely contacted you afterward.”

“I know.”

“And they arrived at your home the day the settlement became public.”

Hearing the facts arranged plainly made something tighten in my chest.

“Still.”

Daniel leaned back.

“Grief can make people question their own judgment. Money can do the same thing. For the next few months, consider making no major personal gifts at all.”

That sounded reasonable.

More importantly, it sounded peaceful.

“I can do that.”

“Good.”

He opened another folder.

“Now, the foundation.”

That word changed the atmosphere.

The Ethan, Lily & Noah Road Safety Foundation had started as an idea during one sleepless night. I had wanted to fund programs that helped schools and community groups teach safe driving habits, provide rest resources for commercial drivers, and support families navigating the administrative aftermath of serious roadway accidents.

The reporter had focused heavily on the amount of the settlement.

I cared about the paragraph near the end where the foundation was mentioned.

“We’ve already received eighty-seven messages,” Daniel said.

“What?”

“Requests for information, partnerships, volunteer opportunities. Several are from legitimate nonprofits.”

For the first time that week, something inside me felt lighter.

“Eighty-seven?”

He smiled.

“People pay attention when someone decides to build something.”

I looked down at the foundation’s draft mission statement.

For months, everything I did had been connected to endings.

Closing accounts.

Canceling memberships.

Signing death certificates.

Sorting possessions.

This was different.

This was beginning something.

Aunt Ruth came over that afternoon carrying vegetable soup and a loaf of bread.

She was my mother’s older sister, sixty-four, with silver hair she refused to dye and a habit of wearing enormous scarves no matter the weather.

She had not mentioned the settlement once.

That alone made me trust her more.

“I brought too much,” she said, setting the pot on my stove.

“You always bring too much.”

“That way you freeze half.”

“I still have three containers from December.”

“Excellent. My system works.”

I smiled despite myself.

Ruth began slicing the bread.

Then she said, “Your mother called me.”

The smile disappeared.

“I assumed she would.”

“She’s upset.”

“So am I.”

“I told her that.”

I sat at the kitchen table.

“What did she want?”

Ruth hesitated.

“She wanted me to convince you to talk to them.”

“About the money?”

“She said about the family.”

I looked toward the refrigerator.

A drawing Lily had made two months before the accident was still held beneath a strawberry-shaped magnet.

Four stick figures.

Ethan, me, Lily, Noah.

A crooked yellow sun in one corner.

“They didn’t want to talk about the family until yesterday.”

Ruth placed the knife down.

“There’s something you should know.”

I looked at her.

She pulled out the chair across from me.

“Your father has been having financial trouble.”

Of course.

The explanation arrived so neatly that I almost hated it.

“How much trouble?”

“I don’t know everything.”

“Did Mom tell you?”

“Not directly.”

Ruth sighed.

“Your father invested most of their retirement savings with a friend from his old company. Some kind of commercial property project. It went badly.”

“How badly?”

“They may lose the house.”

I stared at her.

My parents had lived in the same brick colonial for twenty-seven years.

Every Thanksgiving photograph had been taken in that dining room.

Every Christmas tree stood in the front window.

“Since when?”

“Last summer.”

Before the accident.

“Why didn’t they tell me?”

“Your father is proud.”

I almost said, Then he should remain proudly broke.

But the thought did not feel like mine once it reached the surface.

“What does Melissa have to do with it?”

Ruth looked down.

“That part I don’t know.”

The doorbell rang.

We both froze.

I checked the camera on my phone.

A courier stood outside holding an envelope.

After he left, I carried it inside.

My name was written on the front in my mother’s handwriting.

No return address.

Inside were three pages.

Claire,

I know you think we came because of the settlement.

You are partly right.

Your father is frightened, and fear makes him focus on practical things because practical things are easier for him than feelings.

That is not an excuse.

I need you to understand that I wanted to come to the funeral.

I read the sentence twice.

Then a third time.

Ruth watched me carefully.

I continued.

Your father said Melissa needed us. He believed you had Ethan’s parents and that Melissa had nobody else who could make her birthday feel normal after what had happened earlier that week.

Earlier that week?

I kept reading.

There are things Melissa asked us not to tell you. At the time I thought keeping her confidence was the loving thing to do.

Now I am not sure.

I should have come to you.

I should have gotten into my car even if your father refused.

I didn’t.

That is something I will regret for the rest of my life.

But before you decide what our absence meant, please ask Melissa what happened three days before the accident.

I lowered the letter.

Ruth’s expression changed.

“What?”

I handed it to her.

She read silently.

When she reached the final paragraph, she frowned.

“Do you know what your mother means?”

“No.”

I picked up my phone.

There were seventeen unread messages.

One was from Melissa.

I opened it.

Claire, please don’t believe everything Mom tells you until you hear the whole story.

My stomach tightened.

I typed three words.

Then tell me.

The typing bubble appeared almost immediately.

Stopped.

Appeared again.

Then vanished.

Five minutes passed.

Finally, another message came.

Not by text.

Can we meet somewhere tomorrow?

I showed Ruth.

“What are you going to do?” she asked.

I looked again at my mother’s letter.

Six months ago, I had been certain I understood exactly why my family had missed the funeral.

Melissa’s birthday mattered more.

Maybe that was still true.

But now there was another piece of the story.

One they had hidden from me while my own life was collapsing.

And for the first time since the headline appeared, I realized the money might not be the biggest secret my family had brought back to my door.

Melissa chose a coffee shop halfway between our houses.

It was exactly the kind of place she liked—white brick walls, small round tables, plants hanging from the ceiling.

She was already there when I arrived.

For a moment, neither of us moved.

My younger sister looked different from the woman in the family photographs I had ignored for six months.

Tired.

Not dramatic.

Not broken.

Just tired.

There was no engagement ring on her hand.

I noticed immediately.

She noticed me noticing.

“We ended things,” she said.

I removed my coat.

“When?”

“November.”

I sat across from her.

“You never told me.”

“You weren’t speaking to us.”

The answer was fair enough that I said nothing.

Melissa wrapped both hands around her coffee.

“I’m sorry about coming to your house.”

“Was that Dad’s idea?”

“Yes.”

“Did you know he wanted money?”

Her shoulders sank.

“I suspected.”

“So why did you come?”

“Because I wanted to see you.”

“Six months after the funeral.”

“I know.”

The waitress passed our table.

Melissa waited until she was gone.

“Mom told you something happened before my birthday.”

“Yes.”

She stared down at the foam in her cup.

“Three days before the accident, Mark told me he wasn’t sure he wanted to marry me.”

Mark had been her fiancé.

I remembered meeting him twice. Pleasant. Quiet. An accountant who loved cycling and spoke carefully whenever Dad was around.

“Why?”

“He said I had spent so much of my life trying to keep Mom and Dad happy that he didn’t know whether I knew what I wanted.”

I almost smiled at the terrible familiarity of the sentence.

Melissa saw it.

“I know.”

She looked toward the window.

“We had this enormous argument. Not screaming. Just… everything coming out at once.”

“What happened?”

“I told him he was wrong. Then I realized he wasn’t.”

She swallowed.

“I went to Mom and Dad’s house. I stayed there for three nights.”

Including the morning of the accident.

“The birthday dinner,” I said.

Melissa nodded.

“I didn’t want it.”

I stared at her.

“What?”

“I told them to cancel it.”

The coffee shop seemed to become quieter around us.

“Dad said keeping plans would help. He said I needed normality.”

“And when I called?”

Her face tightened.

“I was upstairs.”

“You were there.”

“Yes.”

“I heard you in the background.”

“I know.”

“You knew Ethan and the kids were dead.”

“Yes.”

The answer was almost a whisper.

“And you let them stay.”

Melissa closed her eyes briefly.

“That’s the part I have no excuse for.”

I said nothing.

She continued.

“When Mom told me, I said they should go to you.”

“Then why didn’t they?”

“Dad said the funeral was Friday and there was nothing anyone could do that day. He said we could finish dinner and deal with everything in the morning.”

My father’s voice echoed in my memory.

Today is your sister’s birthday.

We can’t come.

I had interpreted it as a scheduling conflict.

Melissa shook her head.

“Mom wanted to leave.”

That surprised me.

“Dad told her she was overreacting. He said Ethan’s parents would handle everything because they were already at the hospital.”

Something cold moved through me.

“And you?”

“I should have gotten in my car.”

The same sentence Mom had written.

“I should have come whether they did or not.”

“Why didn’t you?”

Tears gathered in Melissa’s eyes, but she did not look away.

“Because I was ashamed.”

“Of what?”

“That three minutes before Mom told me your family was dead, I thought my life was over because Mark might leave me.”

She rubbed her thumb across the edge of the cup.

“And after we found out, everybody started looking at me like the birthday should continue because otherwise I would fall apart.”

“That makes no sense.”

“I know.”

“Three people were dead.”

“I know, Claire.”

Her voice cracked.

Several customers glanced toward us.

Melissa lowered her voice again.

“Dad kept saying you had people around you. That there would be a funeral later. That one ruined evening wouldn’t help anyone.”

I felt suddenly exhausted.

“You could have called.”

“I tried.”

“When?”

“The next morning.”

“I don’t remember.”

“You didn’t answer.”

My phone had been beside me almost constantly that week, but I remembered almost nothing clearly.

“What about the funeral?”

Melissa looked ashamed.

“Dad said going would make things worse because you were angry.”

I stared at her.

“He said that?”

“Yes.”

“How would our parents attending their daughter’s husband and children’s funeral make things worse?”

“It wouldn’t.”

“Then why did you listen?”

“Because I always listened.”

There it was.

Not an excuse.

A pattern.

A family habit so old that none of us had recognized how destructive it had become.

Dad decided.

Mom softened.

Melissa complied.

And I withdrew.

We had each learned our role.

Then tragedy had revealed what those roles cost.

We talked for nearly two hours.

Melissa told me Mark had postponed the wedding two weeks after the funeral.

“He asked me why I didn’t go,” she said.

“What did you tell him?”

“That Dad thought it would be better to give you space.”

“And?”

“He said, ‘Was that what Claire asked for?’”

I stared at her.

“No.”

“I know.”

Mark had asked the question none of them had asked.

What did Claire want?

Melissa looked at her bare hand.

“I kept defending Dad. Eventually Mark said he couldn’t marry into a family where nobody was allowed to disagree with one person.”

“What happened then?”

“I told him he was being unfair.”

She gave a small, sad laugh.

“Then I went home and realized I had used Dad’s favorite sentence.”

You’re being unfair.

I knew it well.

“Do you want Mark back?”

“I don’t know.”

It was the first answer she gave that sounded genuinely free.

She met my eyes.

“I need to figure out who I am without deciding based on what Dad wants, or what Mark wants, or what Mom thinks will keep everybody calm.”

That, too, I understood.

The waitress refilled my water.

When she walked away, Melissa said, “I didn’t come to your house because of the money.”

“But Dad did.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“He owes more than Aunt Ruth knows.”

My spine stiffened.

“How much?”

“About nine hundred thousand.”

I almost laughed from disbelief.

“On the house?”

“Partly. He borrowed against it.”

“For the investment?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“He was sure the project would recover.”

“And now?”

“It won’t.”

I leaned back.

“So he sees my settlement as the solution.”

Melissa did not answer.

That was answer enough.

“What about Mom?”

“She’s terrified of losing the house.”

The house.

I thought of the doorway where Dad had photographed us before school dances.

The patio where Mom grew tomatoes.

The upstairs bedroom that still contained a box of my old college notebooks.

I could understand fear.

What I could not understand was why their fear had become my responsibility the moment money entered my life.

“Did Dad ask you to convince me?”

Melissa hesitated.

“Yes.”

“Today?”

“Yes.”

I looked toward the door.

“Then why haven’t you?”

“Because I’m done doing that.”

Something shifted between us.

Not forgiveness.

Not yet.

But perhaps honesty.

For the first time since the accident, I believed Melissa was sitting across from me without performing the role our family had assigned her.

She reached into her purse.

“There’s something else.”

She pulled out a folded envelope.

My name was written across the front.

In Ethan’s handwriting.

I stopped breathing for a moment.

“Where did you get that?”

“Dad’s house.”

My fingers went cold.

“What?”

“I found it last week in the desk in his study.”

“Why does Dad have a letter from Ethan?”

“I don’t know.”

I took it carefully.

The envelope had been opened.

A date was written in the corner.

Eight months before the accident.

I looked at Melissa.

“You read it?”

“No.”

“But Dad did.”

“I think so.”

I slid the paper out.

Claire,

If your father ever gives this back to you, I hope it means we finally had the conversation we should have had years ago.

I stopped.

Melissa leaned forward.

“What is it?”

I kept reading.

I know you love your family.

I also know how much effort you spend pretending their choices don’t hurt you.

You tell me it’s easier to let things go. Maybe sometimes it is.

But I don’t want Lily and Noah growing up believing love means accepting whatever people give you.

I don’t want them learning that being “easygoing” means staying quiet.

Your dad and I talked today.

It did not go well.

My heart began pounding.

Ethan had never told me about a conversation with my father.

I continued.

He thinks I encourage you to distance yourself from the family.

I told him the opposite is true.

I want you to have them.

I just want them to have you too.

Really have you.

Not when it’s convenient.

Not when Melissa doesn’t need something first.

Not when nobody else has plans.

You.

I had to stop reading.

Melissa’s face had gone pale.

“What does it say?”

I handed her the page.

She read the rest.

There were only two paragraphs.

I told your dad that if this pattern continues, one day something will happen that cannot be repaired with another family dinner.

He told me I was being dramatic.

Maybe I am.

But I want you to know this: asking people to show up for you is not asking too much.

Love,

Ethan

For a long time neither of us spoke.

Outside the window, a city bus stopped at the corner.

People climbed aboard.

A man walked past carrying grocery bags.

Ordinary life moved around us.

I touched Ethan’s handwriting.

Eight months before the accident, he had seen the fracture in my family more clearly than I had.

“Why did Dad have this?”

Melissa shook her head.

“I don’t know.”

“It says, ‘If your father ever gives this back to you.’”

“Maybe Ethan gave it to Dad.”

“To deliver?”

“Maybe.”

“Why?”

We looked at each other.

A question neither of us could answer.

That night, I drove to Margaret and David’s house.

Margaret opened the door wearing slippers and an old cardigan.

The moment she saw the envelope, her expression changed.

“Where did you get that?”

“You know about it.”

She stepped aside.

“Come in.”

David was reading in the living room.

When I showed him the letter, he removed his glasses.

“I wondered what happened to it.”

“You both knew?”

Margaret sat beside me.

“Ethan wrote it after an argument with your father.”

“Why didn’t he tell me?”

“He wanted to.”

“When?”

“He said he would wait until things calmed down.”

“What argument?”

David answered.

“Your father accused Ethan of turning you against the family.”

I laughed once, quietly.

“That sounds like Dad.”

“Ethan told him he thought you were always expected to accommodate everyone else.”

Margaret looked at the paper in my hand.

“He was worried especially about the children watching it.”

My chest tightened, but Margaret continued gently.

“Not because anyone treated them badly. He simply wanted them to see their mother valued.”

I looked down.

“Why give Dad the letter?”

“Ethan didn’t.”

I looked up.

“What?”

“He left it in your parents’ mailbox.”

“To me?”

“Yes.”

“He thought mailing it would seem melodramatic. He drove by after work, put it in the box, and then immediately regretted it.”

David smiled faintly.

“He called me from a gas station twenty minutes later asking whether he should go back and retrieve it.”

Despite everything, I could picture Ethan doing exactly that.

Second-guessing himself.

Talking too fast.

Buying some unnecessary snack while debating a life decision.

“Dad must have taken it.”

Margaret nodded.

“And never given it to you.”

I stared at the pages.

Eight months.

For eight months, my father had kept Ethan’s words hidden.

The discovery did not make me angrier.

It made everything clearer.

The funeral had not created the problem in my family.

The funeral had exposed it.

Two days later, Mom asked to meet me alone.

We sat in Aunt Ruth’s living room because I still did not want anyone at my house.

Mom arrived carrying nothing.

No gifts.

No folders.

No requests.

She sat on the edge of the sofa.

“You look tired,” she said.

“So do you.”

She smiled faintly.

“I am.”

Ruth disappeared into the kitchen, deliberately giving us privacy.

I placed Ethan’s letter on the coffee table.

Mom stared at it.

“You knew?”

“Yes.”

“When?”

“Your father found it the day Ethan left it.”

“And read it.”

“Yes.”

“Why didn’t he give it to me?”

“He said Ethan was trying to interfere.”

“Did you read it?”

“Later.”

“And you agreed?”

Mom’s eyes filled.

“No.”

“Then why didn’t you give it to me?”

She looked at her hands.

“Because I was afraid of starting another argument.”

The answer was so painfully consistent that I almost admired its honesty.

“You spent your whole marriage avoiding arguments.”

“Yes.”

“And now?”

She looked toward Ruth’s kitchen.

“Now I’m living inside every argument I avoided.”

That sentence stayed with me.

Mom explained that Dad’s investment problems had become worse in October. He had hidden several notices from her. She discovered them shortly before Christmas.

“He believes if you lend us money, he can restructure everything.”

“I’m not lending him money.”

Mom nodded.

“I know.”

I stared at her.

“You know?”

“I didn’t come to ask.”

“Then why are you here?”

She took a shaky breath.

“To tell you that I’m leaving your father for a while.”

I had expected almost anything except that.

“What?”

“I’m going to stay with Ruth.”

From the kitchen came absolute silence.

Apparently Ruth had not known either.

Mom continued.

“I’m not filing anything. I’m not making dramatic decisions. I simply need to live somewhere where I can hear my own thoughts.”

I thought of Melissa.

I need to figure out who I am.

Maybe for the first time, all three women in my family were learning the same thing.

“What did Dad say?”

“He said I was overreacting.”

Of course he did.

Mom gave a tired smile.

“I told him maybe I should try it for a while.”

I laughed.

It slipped out unexpectedly.

Mom laughed too.

And suddenly we were both crying.

Not dramatically.

Not collapsing into each other’s arms.

Just two exhausted women sitting on Ruth’s old sofa, finally recognizing the absurdity of a family structure we had spent decades treating as inevitable.

Mom wiped her eyes.

“There’s one more thing.”

My stomach tightened.

“What?”

“Your father didn’t come to your house only because he needs money.”

“What else?”

“He believes you owe him.”

The laugh disappeared.

“For what?”

Mom looked ashamed.

“When you and Ethan bought your house, your father gave Ethan money for the down payment.”

“That’s impossible.”

“We paid our own down payment.”

“I know what Ethan told you.”

I stared at her.

“How much?”

“Thirty thousand dollars.”

My mind moved rapidly through old memories.

The year we bought the house had been difficult. Ethan received a bonus. We sold his old car. We saved for years.

Thirty thousand dollars had never appeared.

“Ethan would have told me.”

“That’s what I thought.”

Mom reached into her purse and removed a photocopy of a cashier’s check.

Payable to Ethan Miller.

Thirty thousand dollars.

My father’s signature appeared beneath it.

I stared at the date.

Six weeks before we closed on the house.

“Why?”

“I don’t know.”

“Did Ethan cash it?”

“I don’t know.”

“Why did Dad never mention this?”

“He says Ethan promised to repay him someday.”

My pulse quickened.

The handwriting on the check was real.

The date was real.

And if my father was telling the truth, Ethan had kept something important from me.

For six months, I had held tightly to one certainty.

Ethan and I had told each other everything.

Now there was a thirty-thousand-dollar question sitting on Aunt Ruth’s coffee table.

And the only person who could answer it was gone.

THE END