It sat on the kitchen table all day.
Unopened.
Jesse walked past it five times.
Never touched it.
Didn't look at it long, but he didn't throw it out either.
---
By nightfall, I'd had enough waiting for him to be ready.
I made tea.
Lit a candle.
And sat beside him on the floor, our backs against the cabinet.
I didn't ask if he wanted to open it.
I just offered it.
He took the envelope like it weighed more than it should.
Like opening it might break something inside him.
---
His hands were steady.
But his breath wasn't.
He tore the seal with a kind of slow dread, then pulled out the pages—one at a time.
First, the will.
Then the deed.
Then a letter.
---
I watched his face as he read.
His jaw locked.
His eyes didn't blink.
His fingers curled tighter around the edges of the paper the deeper he went.
---
The house—his childhood home—was left to him.
The land behind it too.
A garage. A rusted truck. A locked room his father never let anyone enter.
All of it, now Jesse's.
But none of it mattered.
Not compared to the letter.
---
Jesse,
I won't ask for forgiveness. I know I don't deserve it.
I failed you.
Not because I didn't love you—
But because I didn't know how to love someone I couldn't control.
That's on me.
I watched you leave and prayed you'd forget me.
Because what kind of father tells his son: "You're wrong for wanting softness."
"You're weak for needing men."
But I did say those things.
And worse.
This house is yours now.
Burn it.
Sell it.
Live in it.
Do what I couldn't.
Build something that doesn't hurt.
—Martin Monroe
---
Jesse didn't cry.
He just sat there.
Silent.
Until finally, he said—
"He never said any of that while he was breathing."
I rested my head on his shoulder.
"Then maybe that's why he wrote it while he was dying."
---
He folded the letter.
Held it like something fragile.
And after a while, he whispered—
"I don't want that house."
"You don't have to."
"But maybe…" He hesitated. "Maybe I go back. One last time."
I looked at him.
"You want me to come?"
He didn't answer.
Just looked at me like I was the only real thing in the world.
Then nodded.
"Yeah. I want you to see it."
---
And that's how we ended up planning a trip back to where it all started.
Not for closure.
But for clarity.
Because Jesse's not running anymore.
He's walking toward it.
With me.