Everything around me seemed to stop.
The clock on the wall.
The sound of traffic outside.
Even my own breathing.
“No,” I whispered.
“He wasn’t supposed to die.”
“I know.”
“The doctors said he had more time.”
“I know.”
I could hear Emma struggling to speak.
“He was asking for you.”
I closed my eyes.
Three days earlier, I had visited Dad at the hospital.
He had looked smaller than I remembered.
His hands were thin.
His voice was weak.
But there had been something strange about the way he looked at me.
Just before I left, he grabbed my wrist.
“Lena.”
I turned around.
His eyes were filled with fear.
“If anything happens to me…”
“Dad, don’t talk like that.”
“Listen to me.”
He squeezed my hand.
“Don’t trust the person who cries the loudest at my funeral.”
I had laughed nervously.
“You’re scaring me.”
He didn’t laugh.
Instead, he whispered:
“Promise me.”
I promised.
At the time, I thought the medication was making him confused.
Now I wasn’t so sure.
I drove through the night.
The road seemed endless.
By the time I reached our childhood home, the sky was beginning to turn gray.
Emma was standing outside.
She was wearing the same black sweater she had worn at the hospital.
Her eyes were red.
But something about her expression frightened me.
She wasn’t simply grieving.
She looked terrified.
I got out of the car.
“Emma.”
She ran toward me and hugged me.
For a moment, neither of us spoke.
Then she pulled away.
“There’s something you need to see.”
“What?”
She reached into her coat pocket.
She pulled out an envelope.
My name was written on the front.
LENA.
I recognized Dad’s handwriting immediately.
My hands began to shake.
“Where did you get this?”
“He left it in his bedroom.”
“Did you open it?”
She shook her head.
“No.”
I turned the envelope over.
There was a message written underneath my name.
Six words.
OPEN THIS ONLY AFTER MY FUNERAL.
I stared at it.
“Why would Dad leave this?”
“I don’t know.”
Emma looked toward the house.
“Lena…”
“What?”
“Before he died, Dad told me something.”
“What did he say?”
She swallowed.
“He said if you came home…”
She paused.
“…you shouldn’t come alone.”
I looked at the dark windows of our childhood home.
For the first time, the house didn’t feel like home anymore.
It felt like it was hiding something.
Something Dad had spent years protecting.
And suddenly, I understood why he had been afraid.
