I pretended not to see them and went to my parents first.
My dad didn’t look up until I touched his arm. The reaction was immediate. A flinch he tried to turn into a sigh.
“You okay?” I asked quietly.
He nodded, but it was the kind of nod that meant absolutely nothing.
My mother reached for my hand. Her grip was cold and trembling. She looked older today, like my sister’s death had aged her ten years.
“We need to go home soon,” she whispered. “Your father needs to rest.”
She wasn’t wrong, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that going home meant locking ourselves inside a box where something dangerous was already waiting.
My brother approached, hands in his pockets, playing casual.
“Hey,” he said, lowering his voice. “I need to talk to you about something later tonight.”
“About what?”
He glanced at our parents, then back at me.
“Not here.”
My instincts tightened.
Not here was exactly what someone says when here is too public for whatever they don’t want overheard. In the service, that phrase usually meant trouble or a decision someone would regret.
“What’s it regarding?” I asked, keeping my tone controlled.
He forced a sympathetic smile.
“Just paperwork stuff. Estate things. The boring legal side. You know how it is.”
Actually, I did, all too well. The military taught me more about paperwork traps than combat ever did. Legal phrasing could bury someone faster than a bomb.
Before I could answer, his wife stepped closer, smiling way too wide for someone whose sister-in-law had just been buried.
“We found some documents she was working on,” she said softly. “We think she meant for the family to sign off. It’ll help with the process.”
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