“What is happening?”
He reached into his coat and pulled out an old envelope.
My name was written across the front in my father’s handwriting.
Julian.
“He gave me this twenty years ago,” the gravedigger said. “Told me I would know when to give it to you.”
Twenty years.
My father had planned something before I was even old enough to understand why anyone would need a plan like this.
Then the gravedigger turned and walked away between the headstones like a man who had finally completed a promise he never wanted to keep.
I did not go home.
I sat in my car at the edge of the cemetery parking lot and opened the envelope with shaking hands.
Inside was a short letter from my father.
No comfort.
No explanation.
Only one instruction.
Go to Unit 17. Trust the woman waiting there. Do not go home until you understand why.
