I read them once.
Then twice.
Then again.
Her.
Only one woman had been with Frank during those six days overseas.
Claire.
I didn’t call her.
Two days later, I boarded a plane.
As far as Claire knew, I was still at home grieving.
By the time I reached Claire’s street, I had spent the entire flight telling myself there might be an innocent explanation. Maybe the ring had been engraved years ago and I had somehow never noticed. Maybe Frank had meant someone else. Maybe grief was making me suspicious of a woman who had just lost her father. I repeated those possibilities until the taxi stopped. Then I saw Frank’s belongings inside the house, and every comforting explanation began falling apart.
When the taxi stopped outside her house, I nearly told the driver to keep going.
Then I noticed movement behind the front window.
A boy, perhaps twelve years old, was inside.
He was wearing Frank’s old baseball cap.
I recognized the ugly thing immediately because Frank had owned it for about thirty years and refused every suggestion that he replace it.
The boy was kneeling beside Frank’s open suitcase, carefully removing items from it.
My stomach tightened.
I got out and walked toward the house.
The front door stood open.
Several boxes were stacked in the hallway, and two men were carrying furniture toward a van.
Some boxes had FRANK written across the sides.
His shoes sat beside the staircase.
His travel bag was on a chair.
His cane leaned against the wall.
Claire had sent almost none of these things back to me.
For one wild second, I wondered whether the message in the ring was warning me about something far worse than an ordinary lie.
I stepped inside.
“Claire?”
She came out of the kitchen carrying a box.
The instant she saw me, she nearly dropped it.
Her first words weren’t hello.
“You weren’t supposed to come here.”
I stared at her.
“That’s an interesting thing to say.”
Her expression changed immediately.
“I meant I would have picked you up.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“Diane—”
“Why are Frank’s things still here?”
“I was planning to ship everything.”
“You told me the hospital lost most of it.”
Claire glanced toward the stairs.
That was when I noticed Frank’s phone lying on the kitchen counter.
I crossed the room and picked it up.
Claire moved toward me immediately.
“Give me that.”
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