Five years before Dad died, Eric went through a painful divorce. Somewhere during that period, he and Dad had an argument.
Technically, everyone knew what the argument had been about.
But families understand that some arguments are never really about the thing that started them.
This one carried twenty years of misunderstandings underneath it.
Afterward, Eric and Dad remained polite.
They called on
birthdays.
They saw each other at Christmas.
But something between them had closed.
I knew Dad regretted it.
Naturally, he never said so.
But during those final six months, I noticed how his expression changed whenever Eric’s name came up.
I noticed the phone calls that ended sooner than Dad wanted.
And one evening, I saw him sitting alone at the kitchen table, carefully writing something on a sheet of paper.
He would write.
Stop.
Think.
Then begin again.
I never asked what it was.
After his funeral, I wished I had.
The morning we buried Dad was cold and clear.
I arrived early wearing the black dress I had bought specifically for the funeral and a pair of shoes Dad had given me two birthdays earlier.
People slowly filled the chapel.
Then, after nearly everyone had taken their seats, the doors opened.
Eric walked in.
Every head seemed to
turn.
Because my brother was wearing red.
Not burgundy.
Not dark crimson.
Bright red.
A perfectly fitted, impossible-to-ignore red suit.
He walked to Dad’s casket, stood there silently for several seconds, then came and sat beside me.
I leaned toward him.
“What on earth are you wearing?”
“Not now, Sarah.”
“Dad would have hated this.”
That made Eric finally look at me.
His expression wasn’t angry.
It was strangely certain.
“No,” he whispered. “He wouldn’t.”
Then the service started.
I didn’t ask again.
But throughout the eulogies, I kept watching my brother.
The minister talked about Dad’s reliability, his steadiness, and his habit of making people feel that someone had remembered them.
Eric stared forward, his jaw tightening exactly the way Dad’s used to whenever he was trying to contain emotion.
For a moment, I remembered what years of arguments had made me forget.
Those two men had always been
almost exactly alike.
Everything changed at the cemetery.
Dad’s longtime attorney, Herbert Lawson, approached us after the burial.
Mr. Lawson had handled Dad’s legal affairs for decades. He was seventy-three, meticulous, composed, and rarely surprised by anything.
