Naomi was crying. Real tears.
Letter twelve: a beach trip.
Rosalind was fifteen. Outer Banks. Harrison took her fishing at dawn. She caught a flounder—the biggest one that week.
“You smiled that morning,” Warren read. “I hadn’t seen you smile in months. That’s the daughter I want back.”
Rosalind covered her face.
Letter thirteen: Celeste’s eighth birthday.
The aquarium. She’d stood in front of the jellyfish tank for an hour. Harrison bought her a stuffed jellyfish. She slept with it for two years.
Celeste was crying quietly.
Letter fourteen: Violet’s high school graduation.
She gave a speech. Harrison gripped my hand the entire time. When she finished, he stood and clapped louder than anyone.
Violet wiped her eyes.
Then came letter fifteen.
This one was longer—about Harrison’s father, Grandpa Joe.
“When my father passed,” Warren read, “three hundred people came to his funeral. He wasn’t rich. He wasn’t famous. He was a high school history teacher. But for forty years, he taught. He coached. He stayed after school to tutor kids who were failing.”
I remembered that funeral. I’d stood beside Harrison, watching him cry as former students told him what Joe had meant to them. One man stood up and said, “Mr. Harrison taught me I wasn’t stupid. I’m a college professor now because of him.”
“I sat there watching,” Warren read, “and I thought: What will my funeral look like? Will three hundred people come, or just five? And if only five come, will it be because you loved me, or because you’re waiting to hear how much you’ll inherit?”
Naomi broke. She put her face in her hands and sobbed.
“I don’t even know the names of my employees,” she said. “I fired two hundred people, and I don’t know their names.”
Celeste shook her head. “I can’t remember the last time I actually sat with a patient. Really sat. Not just prescribed pills and left.”
Rosalind stared at the floor.
Violet said quietly, “I didn’t even go to Grandpa Joe’s funeral. I had a client meeting.”
Aurelia didn’t say anything. She just cried.
After Warren left, something shifted.
My daughters didn’t go upstairs. They stayed in the living room. Then Naomi got up, walked to the dining table, and sat down. One by one, the others followed.
They started talking about memories—about Dad, about Grandpa Joe, about Christmas at the cabin, the beach trip, the aquarium.
I stood in the doorway watching.
Celeste looked up. “Mom, do you remember that snowman?”
I nodded. “Your father put a carrot nose on it.”
“A crow stole it the next morning,” Naomi said, and they laughed—quiet, sad laughs.
Rosalind said, “I still have that flounder picture.”
Violet said, “I wish I’d gone to Grandpa Joe’s funeral.”
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