The Unsent Appeal novel · Chapter 24 of 24

Chapter 24: The Key Turns

The north wall of the garage was bare, whitewashed, and swept clean.

Elliott had left a single hook on it, high up, where my father used to hang his coat.

"I didn't want to guess," he said.

Briana and Finley were already there, because Briana had insisted.

She was in jeans and one of my old sweatshirts.

She and Finley carried the red tool chest between them, one handle each.

"It weighs a ton," Finley gasped.

"It's Dad's," said Briana. "It's supposed to."

They set it down against the wall, and I stood there with my hand over my mouth.

The paint on the lid was chipped where he had set down his coffee cup every Saturday for thirty years.

Elliott brought the short step stool from the workshop and put it beside the chest.

"Where it goes," he said.

"Where it goes," I agreed.

Briana opened the top drawer and found my father's carpenter's pencil, still sharpened with a pocketknife, and held it up in the light.

Her eyes filled.

"I used to steal these," she said. "He never said anything. He'd just sharpen another one."

"He knew," I said.

"I know he knew."

Finley put his arm around her, and she leaned into him without making a speech about it.

The engagement still stood, he had told me, with no date set and the ring waiting in her pocket until she asked for it.

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