Gordon opened his briefcase on the hood of my dead car and handed me a single page. “Your grandfather’s condition is simple,” he said. “To inherit, you must spend one year working at Mercer Lumber, starting at the bottom, and you must never sign anything your father puts in front of you.” My stomach turned. “Why my father?” I asked. Gordon hesitated, then took out a second, thicker envelope, sealed with red wax, my name written across it in shaky handwriting.

“He wrote this three weeks before he died,” Gordon said quietly. “He asked that you read it in a safe place, with food in your stomach.” He drove me to a diner two blocks away and bought me a full breakfast, and I ate without speaking. Then I broke the wax. The first line read, “Caleb, your father stole eleven years of birthday cards from you,” and my hands began to shake.