No one agreed.
Letter ten was about memory.
Do not let anybody tell you I was perfect because I died. Dead people get promoted too easily. Ask your mom about the camping stove. Ask Hammer about Phoenix. Ask Colt why I was banned from choosing motel rooms.
Lucy asked all three.
She regretted asking about Phoenix.
Mara refused to explain the motel story until Lucy was older.
Hammer said this violated the dead man’s instructions.
Mara threatened him with a frying pan.
Letter eleven was harder.
Owen wrote:
I made mistakes at the end. Loving me does not mean you have to turn them into good decisions.
Lucy went quiet.
Mara did too.
The letter continued:
I should have told your mother how scared I was. I should have let her be part of more decisions. I thought protecting her meant hiding things. Sometimes hiding pain only makes the person you love carry it later without you.
Mara could not finish.
Lucy took the letter.
Read the rest aloud.
Owen apologized to Mara directly.
Not for dying.
For making decisions alone.
For turning Hammer into keeper of secrets.
For assuming he knew what Lucy would need years later.
At the bottom:
If this plan with the patch and letters was another bad idea, blame me first. Hammer will already blame himself enough.
Hammer stood and walked outside.
Lucy watched through the diner window as the huge man leaned against his motorcycle with one hand over his face.
She started to follow.
Mara stopped her.
“Give him a minute.”
“How do you know?”
“Because adults need those too.”
Letter twelve was the final one.
Lucy saved it until evening.
They read it at home.
Just Mara and Lucy at first.
Hammer had offered to stay away.
Halfway through, Lucy called him.
“Come over.”
He came.
The final letter said:
Twelve is not grown. Any adult who tells a twelve-year-old they are basically grown is usually trying to get out of doing adult work.
Lucy laughed.
Hammer said:
“Correct.”
Then:
But twelve is old enough to understand adults guess more than we admit.
Owen told Lucy to ask people who disagreed with him.
Not only Mara.
Not only Hammer.
Not only club members.
He wanted her to know a real father.
Not a legend created by grief.
You deserve a person, not a hero.
Lucy looked toward the framed patch.
That sentence changed the way she remembered him forever.