The Son Who Returned to Expose Their Shame novel · Chapter 24 of 24
Chapter 24: Home
I carried the box into the kitchen and set it on Gran's table.
Nobody touched it.
Gran poured coffee.
Annie sat with her chin on her hand.
Callie came down in a T-shirt and stopped in the doorway when she saw the marker on the lid.
"That's Dad's writing," she said.
"I know."
"Are you going to open it?"
"I'm working up to it."
Gran slid a book of matches across the table.
"In case," she said.
I slid them back.
Then I cut the tape with Gran's bread knife.
It was my childhood.
There was a baseball glove gone stiff, and a second-place ribbon from a sailing race on the harbor.
There was my Boy Scout sash with four badges, because I'd quit at twelve.
There was a plastic dinosaur with one leg chewed by a dog.
My dog.
I held that one a second longer than the rest.
Callie picked up the sash and laughed, wet.
"You were so mad about the knots badge."
"Nobody can do a sheepshank."
"I can do a sheepshank."
"You were seven."
"I was gifted."
At the bottom of the box, face down, was a frame.
I turned it over.
It was me at twelve, on a little sailboat in the harbor, squinting into the sun with my hair blown straight up.
It was the picture from my father's office wall.
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–12 of The Son Who Returned to Expose Their Shame are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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