Chapter 23: Dad's Room

My father's room smelled of pipe tobacco and lemon oil.

The bed was made.

His reading glasses lay folded on the nightstand, on top of a library book he had not finished.

I stood in the middle of the floor with the brass key in my fist and could not make myself sit down.

Clint, Abel, Eli and Lyle filled the doorway behind me.

None of them came in.

"It's on the pillow," Abel said quietly.

It was a white envelope with my name on it.

I sat on the edge of the bed and opened it.

Beth, it began. If you are reading this, you chose them in front of the whole town, and I owe you an apology and a good deal more.

I read it with my hand over my mouth.

I decided for you when you were eighteen.

I thought I was giving you a door.

I was afraid you would end up like me, with a farm and a kitchen and a life that had gotten small around you.

I was wrong about that, and I was wrong about the boys.

They never wanted to keep you.

They wanted you to come back because you wanted to.

Make them ask. Make them ask every day. They are better at it than they look.

I'm sorry about the ring and the man who sent it.

I would have liked to hit him myself.

Keep the hall light on if you want. Turn it off if you don't. It was only ever a light.

I love you. I never said it enough. Eat something.

Dad

I laughed, and the laugh broke.

I felt the mattress dip.

Four men had crossed the floor, and they were sitting around me on my father's bed, not touching, waiting.

"He told me to eat something," I said.

"He told all of us that," said Lyle. "For years."

I wiped my face.

I folded the letter along its creases and put it in my pocket with the other two.

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