Marcus came out onto the porch behind me that morning with two cups of coffee. He handed me one. He stood beside me and watched the sun come up.
“You okay?” he asked.
“Yeah. I think so.”
“You did it, you know. You won.”
“We won,” I said. “All of us. You. Your mother. Arthur. Dr. Reeves. Even Lucas.”
“Even your mother?”
I thought about that for a long time.
“Maybe,” I said. “In the end.”
We went inside. I walked down the hallway to my father’s study.
His chess set was still on the desk. Mid-game. The last game we ever played, over video call, from Fort Bragg. He’d been winning. He always won.
On the wall above the fireplace, I’d hung the photograph from Grandma’s eightieth birthday. All of it. Every face.
Including the tall gray-haired man standing alone by the roses.
Marcus looked at it.
“You kept him in the picture?”
“I kept everybody in the picture,” I said. “That’s what happened. That’s our family. All of it. If I cut him out, I forget. And if I forget, it can happen again.”
He nodded slowly.
Next to the photograph, I’d hung one more thing. A single page I’d had framed. The very last page of the blue ledger. In my father’s handwriting. Dated March 2. Twelve days before he died.
I know something is wrong. I don’t know who yet. But I know this. Alyssa will finish it if I can’t. She has never once in her life walked away from something that was right. I am more proud of her than I have ever told her. I should have told her more.
I read it every morning.
My father didn’t leave me a house, a company, and a fortune.
Well. He did. But that’s not what he really left me.
He left me the truth. And he trusted me to carry it.
Marcus put his hand on my back.
“What now?” he said.
I looked at my father’s handwriting one more time. Then I turned away from the wall and smiled at the man beside me.
“Now,” I said, “we live.”
Ethan Blake is a skilled Creative Content Specialist with a talent for crafting engaging and thought-provoking narratives. With a strong background in storytelling and digital content creation, Ethan brings a unique perspective to his role at TheArchivists, where he curates and produces captivating content for a global audience.
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