Chapter 3 — Someone He Trusted

Our uncle Clive stepped out of the crowd of mourners, his face tight with the particular outrage of a man defending the natural order of things.

“Your father,” he said, “would never choose you over his son.”

I looked past him, to the polished coffin at the front of the church, and to the photograph of my father propped beside it — taken years ago, before the illness and everything that came with it had hollowed his face.

“He didn’t choose me over Leon,” I said.

“He chose someone he trusted.”