Chapter 3
By the time Claire returned home from her husband's funeral, Ethan was already emptying Richard's desk.
Three cardboard boxes stood on the office floor. One was filled with company folders. Another held bank statements and unopened mail. Ethan was placing documents into the third without reading them.
Claire stopped in the doorway.
"What are you doing?"
Ethan looked up. He had removed his jacket and rolled his sleeves to his elbows.
"Getting Dad's files organized."
"Today?"
"Someone has to do it."
The answer carried the same impatience he had shown at the funeral.
Claire entered the room. Richard's reading glasses still rested beside his computer. A half-finished glass of water sat near the lamp. His chair was pushed back as if he had only stepped away for a moment.
She had avoided this room since his death.
Now Ethan was taking it apart.
"Leave the personal papers here," she said.
"I'm only taking company documents."
Claire looked into the nearest box. On top of the files lay Richard's passport and a bundle of old letters tied with a rubber band.
"His passport doesn't belong to the company."
Ethan picked it up and moved it to another box. "Fine."
"Neither do his letters."
"I said I'm organizing things."
"No. You said you were taking company documents."
Ethan closed his eyes briefly. "Mom, I've had a long day."
"So have I."
"I'm trying to help you."
Claire almost laughed.
At the funeral, he had protected Vanessa. Now he was searching Richard's private papers before Claire had even changed out of her black dress.
"What are you looking for?" she asked.
His hands stopped.
"Nothing."
"Then why couldn't this wait until tomorrow?"
"The office needs certain records. Dad told me where he kept them."
There it was again.
Dad wanted her at the funeral.
Dad told him to take the files.
Richard was dead, but Ethan kept using him to end every question.
Claire walked toward the desk.
Richard had kept personal things in the bottom drawer on the right. Old photographs. Spare keys. Birthday cards he never threw away. Once, Claire had found the first note she had written him tucked beneath a stack of tax papers.
The drawer was open.
It was empty.
Not nearly empty. Completely empty.
Even the gray folder Richard used for personal documents was gone.
Claire bent and ran her fingers over the bare wood. A clean rectangle in the dust showed where something thick had rested for years.
"Where is everything from this drawer?"
Ethan lifted one of the boxes. "There wasn't anything important in it."
"You don't get to decide what was important to me."
His face changed for a second. Not guilt. Annoyance.
"This is exactly why I came tonight. You're exhausted. You're going to sit here, look at every piece of paper, and hurt yourself trying to turn it into something."
"Turn it into what?"
"A reason to be angry with Dad."
Claire stared at him.
That morning, she had still been apologizing to Richard's coffin. Ethan knew that. Yet he was already warning her not to become angry.
He picked up the second box.
"I'll bring back anything personal."
"Leave the boxes."
"I need them at the office."
"Tonight?"
"Yes, tonight."
Claire stepped in front of the doorway.
For several seconds, neither of them moved.
Then Ethan's expression softened, but his eyes did not.
"Mom, please don't make me fight with you today."
The words found the weakest part of her.
She had buried her husband only hours earlier. She did not want to fight with her son too.
Claire moved aside.
Ethan carried the boxes into the hall. He returned for the last one, kissed her cheek without meeting her eyes, and left.
The front door closed.
Claire stood alone in Richard's office.
For a moment, grief swallowed her anger. She lowered herself into his chair and pressed both hands against her face.
The room still smelled faintly of his coffee and aftershave.
She wanted him back.
Then she looked at the empty drawer.
Whatever Richard had done, Ethan was helping him hide it.
Claire pulled the drawer out as far as it would go. Nothing remained inside. She checked beneath the desk, behind the cabinet, and inside the wastebasket.
When she pushed the drawer back, something caught against the wooden rail.
Claire stopped.
She pulled the drawer out completely and set it on the floor. A torn piece of glossy paper had slipped into the narrow space behind it.
It was half of an old photograph.
Richard stood outside beside a picnic table, looking at least ten years younger. His right arm extended beyond the torn edge, wrapped around someone who had been ripped out of the picture.
Only part of a boy remained near the bottom.
Dark hair. A paper birthday crown. The same narrow jaw Claire had noticed at the funeral.
Her pulse began to pound.
She turned the photograph over.
Two words remained on the back, written in Richard's handwriting.
Lucas. Ten.