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What I need you to do right now is stop where you are. Don’t go farther into the house. Dial 911 right now and tell them your father committed suicide.
Petra screamed. She screamed and screamed until her throat was too raw for more sound to pass. Then she curled over her legs and sobbed.
When utter exhaustion quieted her, she remembered there were more words on the page. The very last words her father would ever say to her. So she sat up and lifted the page again, letting tears fall as they would.
When they get here, send them to the basement. Petra, do not go down there.
I’m more sorry than I could ever say that I haven’t been a better father. You’ve had to carry the burdens of my weakness since your mom died, and I’m so sorry. I’m even more sorry that I’m not strong enough to protect you from this. The one thing I can still protect you from is the basement. Please don’t go down there.
You are the best thing I ever made, Petra Marie. Your mom and I used to say that to each other every time you did something amazing—so often! “She’s the best thing we ever made,” we’d say and feel smug about how much better our kid was than every other kid ever born. You made us proud every day. I’m so proud of the woman you’ve become. You know who you are. You know how to find happiness and light no matter how dark the world becomes. I know you’ll find happiness and light again. And I know I’m not leaving you alone in the world.
Thank you, my beautiful, wonderful daughter. Live a beautiful, wonderful life.
And don’t cry too much for me. My pain is over. But my love for you will never die.
Daddy
Petra sat on the floor with the letter in her hand, sobbing silently. A deep numbness began to creep into her mind, trail down her spine and out to her limbs until she simply fell over. That anxious buzz in her head was loud and dense, like a radio tuned where there was no station and the volume turned all the way up.
She didn’t know how long she’d lain on the wood floor beside the dining room table, but when she returned to herself, the light was different in the room.
Don’t go in the basement, he’d written.Call 911 and tell them your father committed—
No. It was not possible. Daddy wouldn’t do that. He wouldn’t hurt her like this. Something else had happened. Someone was trying to make her think he’d done such an awful thing. Someone was trying to hurt her.
Someone was trying to hurt him.
Clutching the letter in her fist, Petra stood and went deeper into the house. The living room was typically unlived-in. She could see through its closed French doors that his office was empty and full of the orderly clutter that had always described it. The family room was unusually tidy, with no sign that he’d been slouched in his recliner watching cable TV and drinking cheap beer. She checked the half bath. She checked the small room that had been her mother’s crafting studio. Everything was empty, and silent, and orderly.
She climbed to the second floor and checked the bedrooms—hers, still decorated like a high-school time capsule. Her bathroom. The guest room and the gradual clutter of random items it had collected over the past few years. The ‘snore room,’ where Mom had slept on nights when Dad’s snores rattled the windows. Her parents’ bedroom, where the bed was neatly made.
A suit bag hung on the back of her father’s closet door. On the seat of his valet chair was a pair of polished black wingtips, with a pair of black socks rolled up in the right shoe. His best black belt was draped over the back of the chair. On his bureau was his favorite tie, dark crimson, his favorite gold cufflinks, and his Rolex.
“Daddy,” she breathed. She would not allow these things to make the sense they wanted to make. Because that was no sense at all.
Downstairs again, she stared at the last door. To the basement.
Petra, do not go down there,he’d written.
She didn’t want to.
But what if he washurt? What if there really was somebody trying to hurt them, somebody who was trying to trick her into staying away, not helping when her daddy needed her? She always there when he needed her.
Always.
She opened the door.
The basement wasn’t finished. For the most part, it was a typical basement, full of boxes and plastic tubs, all of which were, in turn, full of the kinds of things that got stored in basements. And the normal appliances: the tankless water heater, the furnace, the breaker box. The washer and dryer, showcased under one of the windows and near the clothes chute. Mom had made it into a pretty nice laundry area.
There was a barre down here as well, bolted into a concrete wall, with a series of glass panels bolted above it; when she’d been a girl, this had been her practice space. Dad had often talked about building her an actual studio, but in those days he’d been working long hours, traveling quite a bit, doing work-related golf and tennis on a lot of weekends. He’d never gotten around to building a studio.
He’d never missed a recital, though.
Petra got about halfway down the steps when she smelled it: a mélange of earthy, unpleasant odors. As she landed at the foot of the stairs, she turned, as if led by her nose, but pulled up after only one step.
Under and behind the stairs was where they kept the holiday decorations. Her mother had emphatically adored every holiday and decorated the house for something every month of the year. She’d accumulated dozens of Rubbermaid storage tubs, color-coded with the theme of the holiday decorations they stored. Until a few months ago, Dad and Petra had continued decorating in memory of her.
That area, under the stairs and away from the windows, was dark; Petra could only make out the the first row of Rubbermaid towers and vague shapes of the others behind it. Before she went back there, she flipped the switch on the wall.
