Greg appeared behind her almost at once, as if he had been waiting for it.
“Are we reading the will?” he asked.
“Not yet.”
“Why not?”
Ms. Richards reached into her folder and took out a silver key. Old. Worn smooth at the edges.
“Byron left one instruction,” she said, “that has to be completed first.”
And I knew. Before she said another word, I knew, and my stomach dropped.
“The garage,” I whispered.
Dad’s detached garage sat at the far end of the driveway, a low building he had kept locked tight for five straight years.
He had boarded the windows himself. He had swapped the padlock for a heavier one. And he had carried the only key on a chain in his pocket the whole time, so that even I never once saw the inside.
I had asked him about it. Of course I had asked. More than once, over those five years, I had stood in that driveway and said, “Dad, what’s in there? What are you hiding in your own garage?”
And every single time he had given me the same four words.
“Not yet, Chloe.”
He would smile when he said it, a small private smile, as if something wonderful were waiting in there. And I let it go, because that was how we were, easy and unpushing, and because I figured someday he would show me.
Someday turned out to be six days after his funeral, without him there at all.
Back in the living room, Ms. Richards called the five of us to stand near her. Aunt Sandy. Uncle Nolan. Sadie. Greg. Me.
“Byron named each of you by name,” she said. “He was very specific. You all have to be present for this.”
“For Chloe to open a garage?” Greg said. There was a little laugh under it.
“For Chloe to open that garage,” Ms. Richards said. “Yes.”
“Why her?” Greg asked. “I mean, no offense to Chloe, but I’ve handled everything else. All Dad’s accounts, the arrangements. Why is this the one thing that’s hers?”
“Because that was your father’s decision,” Ms. Richards said flatly. She did not smile at him. I noticed that, even then. She did not smile at Greg the way people usually did.
Greg gave a short chuckle and spread his hands. “Well. Dad always did love making us work for an answer, didn’t he.”
Ms. Richards did not laugh at that either. She looked down at her notes and read, precise as anything.
“Chloe unlocks the door and enters first. No one else crosses the threshold without her permission. Those are his words.”
Then she set that worn silver key into my open palm, and it was warmer than I expected, and heavier, and we all walked outside together.
The relatives who had come to pay respects drifted out after us and gathered along the driveway, curious now, murmuring to each other. Twenty people, easy. Aunt Sandy squeezed my arm as I passed her.
“We’re right here, sweetheart,” she said. “Whatever it is.”
Then Greg stepped up beside me and lifted his phone, and there was that arm around my shoulders again, warm and heavy and familiar.
“Let’s see what Dad left us,” he said, and he angled the phone at the garage door, filming.
“Put it away,” I said.
“I’m just recording for everyone. So the people in the back can see, and—”
“I don’t want this recorded, Greg.”
I stepped out from under his arm. And for just a second, before he covered it, irritation flashed across my brother’s face, sharp and real. He lowered the phone. But I noticed he did not put it away. He kept it in his hand, down at his side.
I turned to the lock. My hands were not steady. The key stuck going in and I could not turn it.
I pulled it out, took a breath, and behind me I heard Joshua’s voice, quiet, just for me.
“What comes next?”
I looked back at him over my shoulder. He gave me a small nod.
