“He was a quiet man,” Tom said. “But his love was loud. It was in every repaired shutter, every early morning, every lesson about reading the weather. He didn't say much, but he showed up. Every day, he showed up. Even after our mother died, even after...” Tom paused, thinking of Lillian's confession about the sabotage, “even after dealing with things he kept private, things he never spoke of, he showed up for us.”
After the service, they buried him beside Elizabeth. The headstone was simple:“Daniel Perkins, 1966-2025, Husband, Father, Fisherman.”
The reception was at the inn. Marcy and Rosa had prepared food for a hundred, and it seemed like more came. People shared stories the siblings had never heard. Pop helping rebuild the harbor after a storm. Pop teaching kids to fish for free. Pop quietly paying for groceries when families were struggling. There were so many who attended the reception, people filled every room and even more spilled out onto the porch and lawn.
“Your father helped me buy my first boat,” an old fisherman told them. “I was twenty-two, had nothing, but he gave me a small loan. Said every man deserved a chance to work the water if that's what called to him.”
Kate tried to understand comments like that when she knew her father had little money.
“He never said much,” Mrs. Murphy added, “but after your mother passed, he'd check on the elderly folks during storms. Never announced it, just showed up with supplies.”
Margaret approached Kate near the end of the reception. She handed Kate a photograph of Pop when he was a teenager. “He loved your mother completely,” she said quietly. “Even when things were hard, even when her family...” She trailed off. “He chose her every day. That's rare.”
Kate smiled. “You knew my father?”
Margaret nodded. “A long time ago. I thought you’d want this picture.”
Kate looked at the photo. “Look at him, he’s so young and doesn’t have a care in the world.” She looked at Margaret. “Thank you for this.”
“You’re welcome,” Margaret said and then turned and walked away.
By evening, only family remained. The siblings sat in the kitchen, exhausted, surrounded by casserole dishes and sympathy cards. Ryan and Ben stayed for a while but then left when there wasn’t much more to say or do.
Kate sat at the kitchen table, her mother’s documents and bank passbook in front of her, and her father’s letter to her, Tom, James and Dani.
“The lawyer comes Monday,” Tom said. “For the will.”
“Is there anything to inherit?” James asked.
“The inn's mortgage-free. That's something. Some life insurance. His tools, the truck.”
Kate stood abruptly but then sat back down, not sure how to explain what she’d found in the attic. “I need to tell you all something. Last month, after the Hartwell-Chen wedding, I went upstairs to the attic. I wanted to look for Mom’s wedding dress.”
“Why would you do that?” Dani asked.
Kate shrugged. “I don’t know, I just felt like looking for it. That’s not the point. I opened that big trunk that had so much of her stuff. I don’t know what I was looking for, I think I just wanted to be close to her.”
Dani sat next to Kate and placed her hand on her sister’s shoulder. “I’ve had moments like that, too.”
Kate smiled and continued, “At the bottom of the trunk was a bunch of school stuff of ours, report cards, handmade birthday cards we made in school, lots of drawings we did as kids. But then, in this large envelope, I found something else.”
As Tom and James joined them at the table, Kate pushed the envelope toward the middle of the table. Tom grabbed the papers and bank passbook, and read the letter aloud, their mother's words filling the room:
My dear Katherine (I know it will be Katherine),
I'm writing this the day I declined Woods Hole. You're just a flutter in my belly, barely real, but already you've changed everything. Your father doesn't know yet. I found out this morning…”
Tom's voice wavered as he read about their mother's abandoned dreams, her choice of love, the money deposited into the bank for her unborn child.
“A hundred and thirty-seven thousand dollars,” James whispered, holding the bank passbook, “She saved that?”
“When they could barely pay the mortgage some months,” Tom added, stunned.
Dani cried. “She wanted you to have what she couldn't.”
Kate shook her head, “No. Mom deposited the thirty-thousand, Pop’s been adding to it for years. I think grandfather would have provided even more if he hadn’t died so suddenly.Pop deposited a few hundred dollars a month, but the deposits stopped a year ago.”
“When his illness got worse,” Dani answered.
