On the day of my father’s funeral, I stood next to my mother and siblings on the wet lawn of the Cedar Hill Cemetery. In front of us lay a significantly sized grave, neatly dug out with the dirt pushed to one side and a black casket in the center. The morgue operator had just finished installing the big slab of granite into the dirt and was now dusting it off. It read “Wyatt Meyer—1961-2013.” Underneath were the names Jackie, Peter, Emma, and then Lizzy. My name. I squirmed in my black, heavy dress as beads of sweat began forming on my temples. No one else had come. Not that they would have been allowed to anyway. It had been a privilege, they told us, to even be given the body at all. To be granted a funeral for a felon. I’d heard the talk of the town, of course. Everything had been made public in a matter of days after his death. Went too far down some road. Left behind a fortune. Lost his soul. So heartless. Cedar Hill was too small for little things like that to not flit around. I noticed their lowered voices as I walked through the door of the local diner. Their not-so-subtle glances thrown at me from across the room. I understood perfectly well why it was just the six of us sweating into our clothes on this particular August morning.

The morgue operator straightened up and clapped the dirt off his hands. He looked at us almost expectantly.

“It’s up to anyone who wants to, at this time, to throw a handful of earth into the grave,” he said. Upon receiving no answer, he bent down next to Emma. “Would you like to say goodbye to your father?”

For a little while longer, no one made a move. I stared down at my feet, my arms locked tightly behind my back. Then, very slowly, Jackie turned her head away and began walking in the other direction. Mom followed, then Peter, who curled his hand around Emma’s shoulder and guided her away. She swiveled her head around, her eyes trained towards the ground, her lips quivering.

I looked after them as they ambled in small paces back towards the car. Then, as swiftly as I could, I walked two strides towards the grave, took as big a handful as I could grasp, and tossed it into the ditch. Without looking at the morgue operator, I turned around and followed in the direction of my family, wiping my palm against the side of my dress as I went.

***
Standing up on the tips of my toes, I lifted the box down from the top shelf and laid it on the floor. I sat cross-legged in front of it, not daring to so much as rest a finger on the cardboard lid. Already a thin layer of dust had collected along the sides. They wouldn’t be back for another couple of hours. Emma, Jackie, Peter, and Mom had left just minutes ago for the 6:15 showing of “Eat Pray Love”. But I still felt like I had to be cautious. Like as soon as the box opened, my family would pounce on me from behind the curtain, demanding to know why I would disturb the contaminated possessions of my criminal father. I don’t think Mom had looked at them, not even when she had retrieved the box from the bedroom and pushed it all the way to the back of the closet.
Our little house was drowning.

No one would dare say it. In fact, no one really ever said much at all. First the weeks passed, then the months, and everyone pretended to be content with a nod here and there before school, a small smile as we pushed the food back and forth on our dinner plates. It wasn’t grief, though. It was drowning in stillness. Nothing had moved in the drawers or cupboards for the last couple of months. It was almost like no one was living there at all.
Honestly, it had been strange at first. The face that had beamed up from our framed family portraits in the hallway, that had drifted off in the living room rocking chair with one or two of us on his lap was now decorating the front page of the Cedar Hill newspapers. I tried hard to see something in those steely eyes that glared at me in black and white but I couldn’t recognize him. Mom had sat us down, all four of us, telling us with tears in her eyes what he had done. Dad was a convicted criminal. He had been maintaining an elaborate robbery scheme with a couple of accomplices for over a year, keeping his winnings in a highly secretive safe house. An ex-acquaintance of his had set fire to a house he was pilfering, and he had suffocated to death. His body was mostly intact, save for a couple of burns. She told us these things with a restrained, flat expression. It had not left her face since the conversation.
“So how was school today?” Mom had asked one night, not looking at anybody in particular. She asked this almost every night even if she didn’t really care about the answer.
Peter nodded, staring blankly at his plate. Jackie picked up her phone, scrolling through messages that probably weren’t there.
“You know, Jack, those college applications are due next month,” Mom continued. “I don’t think you’ve even gotten started, and Peter, it’s the same for you. Getting into high school is a big deal so make sure those grades are up . . .”
She trailed off, like she did every night, no matter what the topic. About five minutes of absolute silence had followed, except for the occasional fork scraping against porcelain.
“Mom, I don’t know if you read the paper,” I had begun. “Or if you hear what’s going on around town. But I heard Jimmy Bernstein say something about . . . well it was kind of about something Dad did—I mean, something he thinks he did. He was saying how he had this plan to blow up the square with a bomb.”
She stopped mid-chew, looking straight ahead. My family seemed to think that if we didn’t talk about it, it would just eventually go away. As if the empty chair between her and Emma would become any less glaring.
“You have to listen to me,” she whispered. “Those people don’t know what they’re saying. They have no idea. Don’t pay attention to a word.”
“I know that,” I continued. “But I want to know what you know. Or what you—“
Mom slapped her knife down on the table. “Goddamn it, Lizzy!”
The room was dead silent until Emma started whimpering, because she always cried whenever Mom cursed. Mom bit her lip and looked back and forth between the two of us. Jackie got up from her seat and put her arms around Emma, burying her face in her shoulder.
“I’m . . . I’m sorry,” Mom had said. “Oh, Emma. I’m so sorry. It’s OK, baby. Everything’s OK, don’t cry. Don’t cry.”
And then we had all gradually risen from the table in turns, wondering who exactly it was that had started it tonight. And then we all remembered that it wasn’t someone sitting with us in the kitchen.
I touched my finger lightly to the edge of the box and then withdrew as if it would shock me. Very slowly, I traced it with my thumb. I pulled off the lid and my mouth formed a small O.

From inside the box came the smell of dry dust flying behind a Toyota Tercel. Of scattered stones being flung into the river and creating quarter-sized ripples. Of 7-day road trips, Bob Dylan crooning from the stereo. Of long nights and empty houses, Mom waiting up by the door. Of large coffee cups and Monday morning papers and pancakes cooking on the grill.
I reached inside and found: a washed out Boston Red Sox cap. A tattered copy of Gone With the Wind. Four school photos of my siblings and me. His wedding ring. A CD of The Beatle’s Greatest Hits. The last two items I didn’t recognize. One was a torn envelope, papers inside, with the initials C. A. D and a local address written on the front in Wyatt’s leftward-slanted handwriting. The other was a faded red lottery ticket.
I pulled the letter out of the envelope, unfolding it.
Caleb,
If you should ever want it, you know where it is. I hope you’ll change your mind. Just know that what decisions I made, I made for my own reasons. Reasons I stand by. Take care, please. Know that I admire your bravery. I always have.
Wyatt
I shook my head. I hadn’t really known what to expect in opening the box where I’d seen him stashing his things late one night, but it definitely wasn’t a whole new set of questions.
Went too far down some road.
Lost his soul. So heartless.
Somewhere in the box was the answer. And I was going to find it.
***
The overhead lights were switched on, casting a warm glow on our backyard that actually made it look like a baseball field. Old newspapers in their respective places formed a lopsided diamond around the pitcher’s mound, which was currently a white towel from the cupboard. Dad stood at the center, pretending to peer into the catcher’s glove to pick up the signs as I grabbed the plastic bat and stepped up to home plate. Mom sat with baby Emma on the back porch.
“Here it comes, you ready?” said Dad. “I’m bringing the heat. My 100-mile per hour fastball coming your way.”
He went into an exaggerated pitcher’s motion before lobbing the foam ball gently across the plate. I took a big uppercut as it bounced a few feet behind me.
“Steeee-rike one,” Peter hooted, slapping his glove over at first base.
“Eye on the ball all the way to the bat, Liz,” Dad said. “You’re right on it. Give it another shot. You ready? Here it comes.”
He again tossed it slowly in my direction, and I again missed by a mile.
“Steeee-rike two,” Peter said. “One more strike and you’re outta there!”
“There you go, that was better,” said Dad. “Remember, bat back, feet planted, eye on the ball. This is your pitch, I can feel it. You hear that, Jackie? You better back up to the fence because this one’s getting smoked.”
He went into his elaborate motion. Right before he released the ball, I closed my eyes and placed the bat hesitantly in the middle of the strike zone. When I opened, the ball was rolling a couple feet in front of me. For a second, I stood there rooted to the spot before taking off in the direction of first base. Dad picked it up and threw it miles above Peter’s head, commentating as the play continued.
“Oh, and a throwing error on the pitcher! There she goes, rounding first and heading for second. Now she’s going for third. Just look at her motoring around those bases, folks! I don’t believe it, but it’s gonna be an inside the park home run!”
Right before I could touch home plate, he swept me up in his arms and ran out to the middle of the field, hoisting me up on his shoulders. Peter and Jackie both jumped on him, tackling him to the ground and rolling around in the grass. Dad was still pretending to be an announcer, trying to report between fits of laughter.
“And there’s some sort of scuffle that’s erupted on the field, folks. I can’t believe it, but it seems like a mutiny on the pitcher! Oh, they’ve got him down good, how about that? I can’t believe it, I just can’t believe it!”

***
I expected the address to be far away, but it was a short 15-minute walk from my house, just on the outskirts of town. It wasn’t more than a small cottage, partly obscured by a couple of trees, but mostly easy to find. I walked up to the porch and hesitantly knocked on the door. When no one answered, I rapped three more times, harder. I could hear faint stirring from inside.
“I’m not talking to no cops,” came a low, gruff voice. “You guys can go f*** yourselves. That goes for the press, too.”
“I’m not . . . I’m not a cop. Or a reporter. I’m Lizzy. I’m just . . .” suddenly, I was very unsure of who I was. It clearly would mean nothing to this man.
The door cracked open, revealing a young man in baggy, frayed jeans and a sweatshirt at least two sizes big for him. His light brown hair was sticking up in all directions, his face sagging and masked behind days’ worth of stubble. He was cute, I couldn’t help noticing. The kind of guy that my friends at school would giggle and whisper about. He hid half of his body behind the door. When he peeked his head out, I could see that almost his entire face was covered in thin scars.
I had prepared a long, professional speech about why I’d come here, but all I could do when I laid eyes on him was hold out the letter. Confusion flashed across his face as his eyes ran down the page. It then turned to hostility, anger, sadness, and a whole lot of fear.
“Where . . . where did you get this?” he stammered, waving the letter in my face.
“I found it,” I said. “In this big box full of . . .” I blinked a couple of times. “Caleb, Wyatt was my father.”
All traces of malevolence were gone. “Oh. Oh, you poor . . .”
Without another word, he ushered me inside, closing the door behind us. The house was small but somewhat comfortable-looking, with clothes slung across tables, chairs, and on the floor. The shades were drawn, allowing just a small sliver of light to seep through. The whole place had the diluted smell of mold, cigarette smoke, and sweat. He regarded the mess with disdain and began pacing to the other side of the room, wringing his hands.
“Look, kid,” he said. “Lizzy. I don’t really know what to tell you. Wyatt was the devil. I’m not sure if you know that or not, but there’s not really much more I can say about him. I’ve told it all to the Feds.”
“I just . . . I just want to know what happened,” I said. “I know the general details. But who exactly were you in all this? I know what was told on the news headlines, and everything in this letter, whatever exactly he’s talking about. Whatever the ‘it’ is.”
He narrowed his eyes. “We were partners, you could say. Yeah, I know. Think what you want. I was in it. And I won’t make excuses either.” His voice took on a mocking quality. “I was the messenger boy. I drove the s*** from place to place. I risked my ass, ducking in and out of houses, grabbing things and selling them for more. It was Wyatt that planned the whole thing. He was the mastermind. You could say I was lucky. Just a couple months time, some community service. The money is what he’s talking about in the letter. He wants me to take it and I, uh, I won’t.”
“But why?” I asked. “Why do it? And how . . . this wasn’t him. If you really knew him—“
“If I really knew him,” Caleb said, the veins popping out of his temples. “No. It was you, and everyone, who didn’t know him. Get over it, kid. The sooner the better. Wyatt, he wasn’t just a regular sort of guy, you know? Not even close. That greedy, manipulative bastard wouldn’t . . .” He looked at me, shame flushing his face. I wasn’t sure why I got the strange sensation that he meant the exact opposite of everything he was saying. “It was the money. That was, uh, the reason. That was why.”
“And you?”
He shook his head very slowly, as if he had been asking himself the same question for a long time.
“It doesn’t make any sense,” I said. “There are other ways to make money. You get a part time job. You sell things on eBay.”
“Yeah, but there’s nothing quite like . . .” For a second, Caleb stared off into the distance at something. “It gives you a sick rush. Running from the cops. Sliding just under their noses. Going in and out of these sketchy places. That’s as good a reason as any.”
“Do you know anything about this?” I held out the lottery ticket.
He rolled his eyes and shrugged. “He always kept it with him. Some kind of lucky charm, I don’t know. Surprised it wasn’t on him when he died. And I guess you’ll be wanting to know what was up with that.”
“I know how it happened,” I said. “He was caught in a fire, or something.”
“This gang we stole from, I think,” he said. “They caught on and lit the place up.”
“Were you there?”
He raised his eyebrows and looked confused, as if surprised by the memory. “Yeah, I mean, kind of,” he said. “I would have been. But he told me not to come. I think he knew.”
“Knew that they were coming for him?”
He nodded.
For a second, I was unable to speak. “So why, why would he go? He didn’t want to die! I know he couldn’t possibly have wanted to . . .”
Caleb walked up to me and bent down to my height, something I’d always really hated when I was little.
“At a certain point, you’re just at the end of the line,” he said. “There’s no amount of money you can make or houses you can steal from that’ll save you. He was at the end, and he knew it.”
“But that means he was looking out for you.”
He turned on me, his eyes suddenly ablaze with torment. “You don’t understand. You just don’t. The things he did. He was never looking out for anybody. Nobody but himself. I can’t. I just, I just can’t.”
“So then tell me. Tell me if I don’t understand.”

“You won’t want to hear it.”
“Caleb, I came all the way over here to figure out what the hell type of person my dad became in the last year of his life,” I said. “Don’t think you’re sheltering me of anything by keeping this to yourself.”
He pursed his lips. “He once looked straight at a kid and shot him dead. Just like that. Shot him.”
“You’re lying.”

“You see? I told you that you wouldn’t want to know.”

“You can’t be serious. You can’t be telling me that actually happened. I don’t believe you.” But at the same time, I looked at Caleb and I think for the first time fully saw the mania in his eyes and knew he couldn’t be lying.

“He called it necessary killing,” he said. “Anything to keep his boat floating. Oh, and he was very resistant to the idea of ever calling it quits before he was ready. Or doing something any other way than how he wanted it done. I found that out, time after time. We had our fair share of disagreements. Not convinced? Nah, why should you be?”

He walked over to the couch and plopped down on top of it, curling his knees up to his chest and suddenly appearing very tired. He picked up a joint from an ashtray and lit it, guiding his fingers to his lips. He took a long drag and wrapped his arms around his knees.
For a second, I could feel all of it, every single ounce of sadness in this man. All of the torturous things that had happened at the hands of my father. It flew up from the walls and floorboards and just swallowed me. I wanted to walk over to the couch and put an arm around him, tell him it would be all right even though it probably wouldn’t. I was about to leave when the torn letter caught my eye. I picked it up and reread it.

“You know, he really cared about you. I can tell.”

For just a second, it looked like he actually wanted to believe me. Then he smiled, but it was bitter and malicious. He stood up, shaking his head in a way that made me think I really never could understand. I thought I saw tears forming at the corners of his eyes.
“You see these?” Caleb pointed to one of the many white scars lining his face. “He gave me every one.”
***

I walked up and down the rows of Cedar Hill Cemetery, surrounded by headstones of all shapes and sizes. It was cooler this time, just before dawn. The granite wasn’t quite as shiny. I could barely make out the lettering. The grave had been entirely filled in sometime since the funeral. Before I sat down next to it, I pulled the lottery ticket from my pocket and placed it underneath a mound of earth.

Two years it had been, if the tabloids were correct, since the first heist. Two years and I wasn’t any closer to figuring out why. But then I thought of my father dozing off in the living room armchair, sometimes not getting out of bed for hours and hours at a time, moaning and grumbling to Mom. I thought of him slowly losing the light behind his eyes, drifting farther and farther away, no longer caring for the world he lived in. And I thought about what Caleb had said, about getting a rush. And I suddenly understood everything, yet at the same time nothing at all.

“But there are roller coasters,” I said, not caring at all that I was talking aloud to a cemetery full of graves. “There’s horror movies and skydiving and listening to heavy metal. There’s so many other ways to . . .”

I realized tears were rolling down my cheeks and falling down onto the grass. The first time I had cried since his death. I tried to force myself to stop because people shouldn’t cry for criminals, for men that robbed houses and committed murder and did all of the other unspeakable things Caleb had mentioned. But the harder I tried, the faster they came, and despite everything I was smiling. I felt for the first time in a while this enormous weight being lifted off my shoulders and I knew I wouldn’t be crying for Wyatt anymore after this. As darkness turned to light, I put my hand on the headstone and moved closer.