“Lovely.”
I sink onto the floor, legs sprawled, and look around the chaos of half-packed boxes, donation piles, and uncovered memories. Emmy’s down for a nap,
Cash is outside cutting boards for the new chicken coop door, that doesn't lock, and the house is finally quiet except for Harper humming while pecking away at her computer for work, and the occasional creak of the old floorboards.
“This place is a time capsule,” I say, brushing my hair off my forehead. “Every room’s got pieces of my dad stashed away like clues to some unsolvable mystery.”
Harper points at a box beside me with a dramatic sigh. “Maybe it’s not about solving him. Maybe it’s aboutmaking peace with who he was, and deciding who you want to be now.”
I glance over at her. “When did you get so wise?”
“I watch a lot of Hallmark movies.”
We both laugh, and the sound bounces off the freshly cleaned walls like it belongs there.
I reach for another stack of dusty papers and freeze, my fingers tingling as if they already know something important is buried here. My heart gives a strange jolt, a mix of dread and hope tightening in my chest.
The dust clings to my skin, but it’s the sudden flutter in my stomach, the barely-there tremble in my hand, that anchors me. I don’t know why this stack feels different, but something about it makes the air in the room feel heavier, charged with the weight of memory and discovery.. “Hey, check this out.”
Harper leans over as I unfold a faded blueprint. It’s a layout of the ranch house. Hand-drawn. And in the corner, Dad’s unmistakable handwriting:“For Avery’s future.”
My throat tightens.
“You okay?” Harper asks, gentler now as she moves over and flops down beside me.
I nod, but my voice comes out shaky. “Yeah. I just… I never knew he thought that far ahead.”
She nudges my shoulder. “He was always thinking of you, even if he sucked at saying it.”
I tuck the blueprint into my lap and lean back against the wall. The dust, the tears, the exhaustion, it all swirls together into something that feels strangely like healing.
“Still think about going back to the city?” she asks after a while.
I shake my head. “Not today.”
Outside, I hear the familiar crunch of boots on gravel. A shadow passes by the window. Cash, moving between projects like always. Steady, quiet, mine.
And for the first time in a long while, I feel like I might just be doing what I'm supposed to be doing.
A few hours later, I’m elbow-deep in the old desk drawer in Dad’s study when my fingers brush against something unexpected. Thin paper. Smooth. Deliberate.
I tug it free and find a sealed envelope, yellowed with age but still crisp at the edges. My name’s written across the front in that same scrawling, uneven script I used to see on report cards and birthday cards alike.
“Harper,” I call, my voice tight. “You might want to see this.”
She hurries in, wiping dust from her hands on her jeans. I sit down at the desk, envelope trembling slightly between my fingers.
“Are you going to open it?”
I nod and peel back the flap. Inside is a folded letter and a photo, Dad holding me at the edge of the ranch fence line, sun blazing behind us. He’s grinning. I’m maybe eight years old, missing teeth and wearing my first pair of pink boots.
The letter is short. But it punches hard. My fingers tremble as I hold it, the paper warm from my touch, crinkling slightly at the edges.
My throat tightens, a lump rising that refuses to go down. I feel lightheaded, like the weight of the words is pressing against my chest, stealing my breath before I’ve even read the first line.
My breath catches somewhere between the first word and the last, like my heart’s forgotten how to beat. It’s as if the weight of everything I never got to say has folded itself into the lines on the page. My throat tightens, and for a moment, I can’t decide whether to cry or smile, or both.
Avery,
