His "Childhood Friend" Planned My Wedding? Cool, I Planned My Exit! novel · Chapter 10 of 24

Chapter 10: To Both My Girls

Casey's POV

Denise left first. She said she would not stand in a hallway to be lectured, and Rosalie held the door for her with a very polite smile.

That left three of us and a yellow envelope on Rosalie's kitchen table.

Lindy sat on one side. I sat on the other.

Kurt stood by the window, a big man trying to take up less room.

Across the front, in my father's long slanting handwriting: To both my girls. Together, please.

"You open it," Lindy said. "You're the oldest."

"You were closer to him."

"Not anymore," she said, and almost smiled.

I slit the flap with a butter knife.

There was one sheet inside, folded in thirds. The ink had faded a little from three years in a safe.

I read the first line, and my throat closed. I handed it across the table.

Lindy read it aloud, in a voice that shook.

"My girls. I'm writing this on the dock with a bad pen, because the doctor says I have a year and I have always been slow to say hard things."

She stopped, wiped her eyes, and kept going.

"Casey, I should have told you about your sister when you were nine. I told myself you'd lost enough. That was cowardice, and I'm sorry."

I put my hand over my mouth.

"Lindy, I should have put your name on my stone and your face in every picture. I told myself that was your mother's wish, and the truth is I couldn't stand to choose out loud. I chose by hiding. I chose twice, and I'm ashamed of both."

Lindy's voice cracked in the middle of the word ashamed.

"I don't ask you to forgive me," she read. "I ask you to do the one thing I never did. Sit at a table together. The bay is yours, both of you. Take a boat out at night and watch the water. It's the best thing I ever showed anyone."

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