Page 94 of The Words We Lost

The hope between my palms feels like more than a clue or even a gift. It’s the final piece of a legacy that ended much too soon. The idea that something could be waiting for us inside this cover, something Cece took the time and thought to prepare for us to find in this way, for this moment, is a miracle that shouldn’t be rushed.

For the first time in nearly a year, Cece doesn’t feel so far away.

“You do it.” My request is little more than a whisper, but Joel responds by releasing the yellow envelope taped just below the embossed title and breaking the red waxXsealing the flap. There are two cards slipped inside: one to Joel and one to me.

I hold my breath as he unfolds his, only to realize my intrusion on his privacy a moment later. This isn’t the shared memoir he’s opening now, it’s a personal exchange between him and his cousin. I take a step back and offer him the space he deserves.

His fingers still on the paper. “I have no desire to hide anything from you. There’s been too many secrets for one lifetime as it is.”

He moves in close for me to peer over his shoulder.

Joel,

If I were to tally up every eye roll and sharp-tongued word shared between us, I’m sure I’d owe you a thousand apologies (and of course, by my calculation, you’d owe me a thousand and one), but while those childish offenses are easy to forgive, I know the truth I’ve held back from you all these years will be much more difficult.

The day Ingrid packed her bags and left Port Townsend, I was certainI wouldn’t last an hour without confessing all the events that took place that night. I hated that you were hurting. I hated that your guilt and heartbreak were as palpable as the threats I’d felt so powerless to fight on my own.

I made two promises that night—one to you and one to Hal—and both were to love and protect Ingrid at all costs.

Despite my many doubts and shortcomings over the years, I hope I’ve honored them both. I hope even more that I’ve been the kind of friend to Ingrid that you have always been to me: loyal, patient, merciful, just, and faithful.

If God doesn’t grant me the opportunity to sit with you and Ingrid in person after my surgery, then please know, I wrote this memoir as much for you as I did for her. What I didn’t realize at the time was how much I needed to write it for myself, too.

Please forgive me.

I love you.

Cece

P.S. Merrick never had anything on you.

He exhales slowly as he lowers the letter in his hands, and I wonder if his silence has less to do with a loss for words and more to do with a loss of time—the time none of us will ever get back.

When I open my letter, there’s something tucked between the folds. A newspaper clipping from theSeattle Times, dated nearly two years ago now.

We both stare at the article for several seconds until Joel’s voice confirms that I haven’t imagined the headline: “Coast Guard Busts Drug Trafficking in Puget Sound.”

“‘Three years after an anonymous tip from a man on the inside, the U.S. Coast Guard concluded an investigation that resulted in the arrests and confiscation of more than six million dollars’ worth of illegal prescription drugs trafficked between Victoria, B.C., and the many ports along the West Coast....’” Joel skims until he comesto: “‘An officer recounts the night the call came in on the evening of...’” He stops, looks up at me. “Ingrid.”

“I know,” I say shakily. The date was the same night my father took out the Campbell’s boat. “Do you think ... do you think it could have been my dad who called the authorities?”

“Cece must have believed so.”

A warring sensation rushes through me. Not only had these traffickers been stopped and prosecuted for the crimes, but perhaps ... perhaps it was my father who helped put them away.

He turns to me. “Are you okay?”

I nearly laugh because I’m not sureokayis even an option at this point. “I have no idea what I am anymore.”

He steadies me with a hand to my back, and I offer him the same invitation he offered me. I open my letter from Cece.

Ingrid,

If you’re reading this letter, then you’re reading what is likely my hundredth attempt at telling you a truth that has weighed on me ever since the moment I watched your father motor into the Pacific. Since that night, I’ve made and broken so many vows to myself, becoming overly obsessed with the details of the where, when, and how I should tell you instead of the what that robbed you of a father. It was so much easier to escape into my fiction, especially when you seemed to be happiest in Cardithia, too.

Turns out, there’s no perfect way to tell a painful truth to someone you love.

And then, just a few weeks before my prognosis, I found the article. I’d been checking up on every news medium I could for years. I’m choosing to believe your father was the anonymous tip giver, that he made the best choice he could after a series of choices I know he regretted.

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