“His what? His cufflinks?” Thomas vibrated with rage, his hands shaking as he thought of the frayed white dress shirt hanging in the closet upstairs. His father’s old shirt that Thomas had taken the day he’d died. The only thing he’d wanted. The shirt off his back. That still smelled of him. Of rich cigars and spicy cologne.
But now the links were gone. Because of Peter.
“You have no idea, do you?” Thomas spat. “You can’t even imagine what it’s like to have to succeed all the time. Father expected it, Mother expected it. I couldn’t fail.”
“You failed all the time,” said Marianna, recovered. “But they refused to see it. You’re lazy and a liar and they thought you could do no wrong.”
“They knew I was their only hope,” said Thomas, his eyes never wavering from Peter. “You were such a disappointment.”
“Peter never disappointed his father.”
It was a voice the Morrows rarely heard. They turned to look at their mother, then beside her.
“He never expected you to excel, Thomas,” Bert Finney continued. “And he never wanted anything except for you to be happy, Marianna. And he never believed those things written on the bathroom wall about Julia.”
The old man struggled to his feet.
“He loved your art,” he said to Peter. “He loved your music, Thomas. He loved your spirit, Marianna, and always said how strong and kind you were. He loved you all.”
The words, more dangerous than any grenade, exploded in the middle of the Morrows.
“That’s what Julia figured out,” said Finney. “She realized that was what he’d meant when he withheld money and gifts. She who had it all knew how empty those things were, and that anything of value she’d already been given. By her father. Love, encouragement. That was what she wanted to tell you.”
“Bullshit,” said Thomas, returning to sit beside Sandra. “He kicked her out of the house. How loving was that?”
“He regretted that,” admitted Finney. “Always regretted not defending Julia. But he was a stubborn man, a proud man. He couldn’t admit he was wrong. He tried to apologize, in his way. He reached out to her in Vancouver, when he found out she was engaged. But he let his dislike of Martin ruin it. Charles needed to be right. He was a good man, plagued by a bad ego. He paid a high price for it. But it doesn’t mean he didn’t love you all. Including Julia. It just meant he couldn’t show it. Not in the way you wanted.”
Was that the thing to be deciphered, wondered Peter. Not the words of the strange message, but the fact of the message itself?
Never use the first stall in a public washroom.
Peter almost smiled. It was, he had to admit, very like a Morrow. They were nothing if not anal.