Booktree.ng_Forgotten-Witness

CHAPTER 28
While the others slept, Josie went to the hall closet and took
down the box that contained everything her father thought was
important. The tape across the seams was yellow and brittle
and the box was deep, wide, and unwieldy. Until now it had
simply been something that moved with her and been stored
because she knew what was in it.
She put it on the floor and opened it up. Inside, she found
his uniform and a Dodger’s baseball hat. There were twelve
love letters from him to Emily and Emily to him, but Josie
could only stomach two given what she knew. In a manila
envelope, she found what she had been looking for. Joseph
Bates’ honorable discharge dated 1982, four years earlier than
she’d been led to believe. No one had made a mistake. Archer
hadn’t misheard. Here was the proof that her father lied for
years. She tossed it aside and dug in again.
She found a coffee cup from Lake Tahoe, a reminder of her
parents’ honeymoon. The handle had been broken and her
father used it to hold his pens. There was an empty bottle of
perfume. Josie held it to her nose and smelled the slightest
scent of Shalimar.
She found pictures of Emily, each more beautiful than the
last: a wedding photograph, Emily in a bathing suit holding a
fancy drink, Emily in a hat in front of church, pregnant with
one hand resting on her stomach. Emily and Josie standing in
front of the house in Texas. Josie lingered over that one. Her
mother’s arm was around her shoulders as if protecting her.
Josie was tall and gangly even then, smiling, and having no
idea that she shouldn’t be. Josie would keep the ones of her
mother and her, but not the wedding picture. Everything her
father had owned was going out in the trash, and she would
never think about him again.
Josie kept the holster that had held her father’s service
revolver, the one that was now in the drawer of her bedside
table. She would sell the holster with the gun. It had no
meaning for her any longer. Her father didn’t really protect her