“Dad thought about it for eight months,” I told him.

I turned and walked down the porch steps to my car.

Behind me, Julian ripped open the paper envelope, the sound sharp in the quiet suburban driveway.

By five o’clock that afternoon, I was back in Dad’s study on Elm Street.

The house was completely still.

The afternoon sun reached through the lace curtains, casting long square patterns across the oak floorboards where twenty relatives had stood shouting four hours earlier.

I sat down in Dad’s desk chair and opened the center drawer.