I cut the line open with my pocketknife, and a bundle of oilcloth slid into my lap.
Inside was a letter and a stack of savings bonds.
I recognized Vernon’s handwriting immediately. That surprised me more than anything. In my memory, the man barely spoke ten words to me at a time.
The letter started with, “If you’re reading this, I owe you an apology.”
I had to read that sentence twice.
Vernon wrote that after my father died, he pulled away because seeing me reminded him of his brother. Every holiday, every birthday, every family gathering, he saw pieces of my dad and found it easier to stay distant than deal with his own grief. He admitted it wasn’t fair and that he’d spent years convincing himself there would always be time to fix it.
Then he got sick.
The savings bonds, along with an account listed in the paperwork folded behind them, were worth a little over $110,000. Not a fortune compared to what his children received, but enough to know this wasn’t an afterthought.
At the end of the letter he wrote something that hit harder than the money ever could.
“You were never the nephew nobody wanted. You were the nephew I should have called.”
I sat at that kitchen table until after midnight.
A few weeks later I met with the attorney again. Everything was legitimate. Vernon had updated the documents years before he died and left specific instructions that the tackle bag go directly to me.
His children weren’t happy when they found out. We barely spoke afterward.
The tackle bag still sits on a shelf in my garage. The lures are rusted and the zipper barely works anymore.
But every now and then I take out that letter and read it again.
It’s the closest thing to a conversation Vernon and I ever had.