Chapter 1 - Discovery

"Jen…"

She closed her eyes and counted to ten. Well, to three at least. She really didn't have time to count all the way to ten. There was still too much to do.

"Jenny? I think you should come look at this."

She sighed, rolled her eyes, and started up the steps. They had been sorting through this stuff since Tuesday; next Monday, they had to be out--and stay out. The estate would go into probate, and then when the house sold, the proceeds would help to defray the unsettled debts and costs.

At the top of the stairs, she turned left down the hallway, and almost immediately began to climb the wooden pull-down ladderway to the attic.

"Hey, there you are," Doug said. "I found this and--"

"Doug," she began, squeezing her eyes shut and barely controlling the anger in her voice. "We've talked about this. We do not have time for family archeology. We can look at all this stuff later! But for now: put it in a box, label the box 'Uncle Matt - Attic' and--"

"Jenny." His voice was soft, and full of concern. He didn't sound defensive or angry at all.

She opened her raw, tired eyes and looked at her husband. He was holding out to her a battered old Mead five-subject notebook. In the evening light from the dormer opposite the attic opening, she could read on the red plastic cover: "The One Year Suicide."

Jennifer took the notebook from Doug, and climbed the rest of the ladder. At the top, she turned and sat, dangling her legs in the opening. The light from the dormer window fell directly on the notebook's cover. She looked at it with confusion and wonder, as thought it really had come from some ancient dig.

"Jen, is that… Did your Uncle Matt write that?"

"I don’t…" Jen wasn't able to finish. The writing didn't look like Uncle Matt's neat, boxy handwriting at all. A technical design artist for forty years, his printing was as consistent and precise as a computer font. The title on this cover was… Well, it was helpless, and angry, and impotent. It was like the first failed attempts of teen-age graffiti. But there was a signature just below the 'e' in 'Suicide.' It was a signature she could not forget or mistake, one that had adorned report cards and detention slips and the slot for a witness at her wedding. Matthew H. Schriber. Uncle Matt.

Uncle Matt, whose death had raised eyebrows in the family and the community. Uncle Matt, who had held her when Doug lost his job and was floundering, who shook her and told her marriage is forever and it's not always a fairy tale, who kissed her forehead and told her to go home to her husband and remember why she wore that ring on her finger. Uncle Matt, who had insisted on taking custody of Jen, Greg, and Andy when their parents had died in the crash, who had never had his own children, but displayed unerring judgment in raising all three of them...who was eternal and invincible in Jenny's heart.

"Suicide…?" The word slipped out of her mouth of its own accord. She glanced over at Doug and saw him finding everywhere to look but directly at her. She looked back at the notebook, and held it close to her face. Faintly written in fine-tip marker was a small epigraph:

"**Soon To Be a New York Times Bestseller!**"

That was Uncle Matt's handwriting. Sounded like his sarcastic humor, too. Jennifer stared at the cover for a long time, then glanced at her watch. 4:42. Friday. She didn't have time for this; she needed to do exactly as she had instructed her husband and box the thing for perusal later.

But she couldn't. No more could she file this away--this last potential message or cry for help from the man who raised her for all but three years of her life--than she could have ignored his voice if he was begging for shelter outside her own front door.

She opened the notebook and read the first page. As she read, her hand drifted upward to cover her mouth. The printing was frightening. It morphed in and out of Uncle Matt's neat hand, now becoming a mesh of messy cursive and hasty print, then collapsing into a rushed, cramped scribble.

She thumbed quickly through the pages, finding it all the same. Stopping at random pages, Jen had to squint to read the faded, sometimes bloated letters. The ink had bled through the paper in places, and in other places, doodles and random drawings obscured or obliterated the text. She turned back to the first page, took a deep breath, and read what no one else ever knew was on her surrogate father's mind.