Chapter 2
The wind moved through Pine Knot and lifted the edge of the paper in my hands. I didn't let go.
The groundskeeper had already stepped back, his olive work jacket dark against the gray headstones. He held his ring of brass keys loose at his side, and I could hear them tick when he shifted his weight. The yellowed envelope was empty now, torn at the seam. The letter inside was folded twice, soft at the creases from being handled. My tan backpack hung heavy on one shoulder, and my fingers were cold enough that I had to flex them to keep my grip.
I hadn't unfolded it all the way at first. Just the first line, the one I'd heard him say out loud like he was reading it for me.
Son, if you're reading this, Raynan has already started lying.
I'd read it standing over a headstone that wasn't my father's. That was the part I still hadn't caught up to.
The old man didn't rush me. He looked off toward the bare trees at the edge of the cemetery where the leaves had piled against the fence. The sky stayed flat and overcast, that late autumn light that made everything look washed out. I could taste the cold in my mouth.
"Take your time," he said.
I unfolded the letter fully. My father's handwriting wasn't neat. It never had been. Small, slanted, pressed hard into the paper so the ink bled a little on the downstrokes. Yellowed paper, blue ballpoint. Dated at the top. March 14th. No year written, but the paper had that thin, cheap lined stock he'd always bought at the gas station, the kind he'd use for grocery lists.
It was longer than I expected.
Son —
If you're reading this, Raynan has already started lying. If she's told you I'm dead, I wasn't when she filed it. She told me last fall she was going to do it. Said no one would check too hard on a man who kept to himself, especially with you away. I didn't believe her at first. Then I saw the papers she left on the kitchen counter.
Don't go at her without proof. She has a copy of everything with my signature on it, and a judge will look at her paperwork first. You know how she is. She makes things look right.
I put what you need in Storage Unit 108 at Pine Knot Self Storage on Old Mill Road. Just off 17, by the feed store. You can't miss it. Key is with this letter. Unit is paid through June under my name, Dennis Findley — she listed me as Findley Dennis at the house, but the unit is under my real name. Gate code is 1948 star. The lock is the brass one, not the silver padlock. Inside, green file box, taped shut. Don't let anyone follow you there.
If she asks where you got the key, don't tell her. If she says I'm buried here, I'm not.
I was wrong to think staying quiet would keep you out of it. I'm sorry for that.
— Dad
My breath caught halfway through and I had to start that paragraph over. She told me last fall she was going to do it. I read it twice. The paper shook a little and I pressed my forearms against my ribs to steady it.
1948 star. Old Mill Road. Green file box.
I looked up. The groundskeeper was watching my face, not the letter.
"When did he give you this?" I asked. My voice sounded thin.
He rubbed the back of his neck with an aged hand. "He came by late winter. February, maybe early March. Drove that old blue Chevy truck. Asked me to hold an envelope for Finnley Dennis if anyone came asking for a grave that wasn't there."
"February," I said.
He nodded. "Snow still on the ground. He didn't look good, but he was standing right there where you are. Said if a young man with your description came looking for Dennis, I was to give him this and nothing else. Said not to mail it. Said his wife would be watching the mail."
That hit slower than the rest. A year ago, Raynan had told me my father died a year ago. That would have been last fall. But my father was here at Pine Knot in February. Walking. Talking. Handing off a letter about his own death certificate.
"He tell you anything else?" I asked.
"He said you'd know what to do with the key," the groundskeeper said. "And he said to tell you Pine Knot was his idea. He knew she'd pick the closest place and never actually come out here to check. She never did."
I folded the letter back along its old creases. Carefully, like it might tear. I slipped it into the inside pocket of my gray hoodie and zipped it halfway. The brass key was still in my palm, warm now. The little paper tag tied to it with frayed twine read STORAGE UNIT 108 in my father's block letters, same ink as the letter.
The warning was at the bottom again in my head. Don't go at her without proof. I had walked into that house two hours earlier thinking I could just ask Raynan where he was buried and she'd tell me. I'd thought grief would make her soft. Instead she'd stood in that doorway in her dark mauve blouse and looked right through me.
I couldn't go back there without something she couldn't talk over.
I pulled my backpack around and opened it, tucked the empty yellowed envelope inside so it wouldn't blow away. The groundskeeper waited while I zipped it shut.
"You know how to get to Old Mill Road?" he asked.
"I think so," I said. Past the diner on 17, by the feed store. I remembered the self-storage place, those low metal buildings with the orange doors I'd passed a hundred times on the way to school.
He nodded once. "Go before it gets dark. Office closes at five. Gate code still works after, but office girl leaves early this time of year."
I looked down at the headstones one more time, the one I'd been standing beside, someone else's name I hadn't bothered to read. Then I turned toward the cemetery entrance where the gravel path led out to the road. The wind picked up and pushed a few dead leaves across the stones.
May you like
I had the key. I had the address. I had a date that didn't match Raynan's story by four months. It wasn't proof yet. But it was a place to start that she didn't know I had.
I started walking.
