Chapter 4 - THE CEDAR BOX
The funeral director led me into a storage room behind the church office.
A cedar box sat on a shelf. My name was written across the top in my mother’s handwriting.
Vernon pushed through the door behind us.
“That belongs to the family.”
“I am family,” I said.
“You forfeited that.”
The funeral director stepped between him and the shelf.
“Mrs. Hart’s instructions were explicit.”
Inside the box were photographs of Caleb at every age. Newspaper clippings about my assignments. Copies of promotion announcements. Army newsletters. Christmas cards I had mailed for years.
Most of the original envelopes had never been opened.
My mother had somehow collected the information later—through public records, an old church friend and, near the end of her life, a home health aide named Teresa.
At the bottom of the box lay thirty-two letters bearing my handwriting.
Returned invitations.
A photograph of Caleb in his first uniform.
A card announcing my wedding to Marcus.
Every one had been hidden from Mom.
Then I saw a sealed envelope.
Across the front, she had written:
Rebecca—read this before your father speaks for me again.
Vernon lunged.
He shoved me into the metal shelving, reaching for the envelope. The wooden edge of the cedar box struck the old scar near my shoulder.
Caleb caught his wrist.
“Do not touch my mother.”
Vernon pulled against him.
“She has poisoned you against this family.”
“No,” Caleb said. “You did that yourself.”
The funeral director opened the door and called toward the hallway. He had already asked church security to contact the sheriff’s office after hearing Vernon threaten me beside the casket.
Caleb removed a pair of duty handcuffs from beneath his dress coat.
“Dad,” he said calmly, “step away from her.”
May you like
Vernon laughed until Caleb identified himself as a sworn deputy and told him he had witnessed an assault.
The laughter stopped.
