“I don’t think that’s what he’s saying.”
“Then what is he saying?”
“Read it.”
I hated him for that answer.
I hated Randall more for making Wade the mouthpiece of a dead man.
I opened the letter again.
Maybe you would have surprised me. Maybe I stole that choice from you. I know that. I knew it then.
But I was afraid.
There it was.
The word looked almost modest among everything else.
Not of dying. I had some fear of that, but not enough to do what I did. I was afraid you would die because of me.
I put the page down.
For several seconds neither Wade nor I moved.
Outside, a delivery truck groaned somewhere down the street. A gull cried over the roofs, absurdly far inland from the water but common enough here that I normally did not notice.
Randall had always noticed gulls.
