chapter 131

Archer

My dad’s entire house is as orderly as his life leading the pack was, and it stings like holy hell, because it reminds me how short I’m going to fall against his legacy.

I came into Dad’s house thinking I’d have to split things up and organize. Pack documents here, personal documents there, knick-knacks and old clothes, all the little things that make up a person’s life. But as it turns out, my father must have been preparing for his absence a helluva lot longer than I did. An entire filing cabinet is already neatly alphabetized and labeled with my name in Dad’s crisp, neat handwriting.

I stare down at the label for so long that my feet might as well have become rooted to the hardwood floor. I wonder when he wrote it, since his hands were shaking so much in the end that I can’t imagine the handwriting would have come out so clean.

Did he do this right after the diagnosis? Before the illness even began to take him from me? I guess it isn’t that big of a leap to think he’d prepar