PART 3 OF 4 — THE SECRET INSIDE THE WOODEN BOX
I called Roy early the next morning.
When I mentioned Gloria’s first husband, he became unusually quiet.
“Where did you find that photograph?” he asked.
“In Dad’s wooden box.”
Roy sighed.
“Your father probably should have told you years ago.”
I waited.
“Gloria’s first husband was named Walter,” he explained. “He served with us. He and Elmer were close. Very close.”
I knew Walter had died before Gloria married my father, but I had never heard much about him.
“What happened?”
Roy took a breath.
“Walter didn’t make it home.”
He explained that Walter had been killed during their deployment. Dad had been one of the men who carried the news to Walter’s family.
Years later, when my father met Gloria, he recognized her name.
He told Roy that he had struggled with whether to introduce himself.
But Gloria eventually learned the truth.
And according to Roy, she had always been uncomfortable with the connection between the two men.
“Your father never blamed her,” Roy said. “But he wanted to make sure Walter was remembered, too.”
I looked again at the photograph.
There was Walter, standing beside my father, both of them looking impossibly young.
“What does this have to do with the cemetery?”
“There’s something else you need to know.”
Roy explained that Fort McPherson was where Walter had originally wanted to be buried.
But Walter’s family had chosen another cemetery after his death.
Dad had carried that regret for decades.
He wanted to spend his final years close to the men he had served with, including the friend he never stopped remembering.
I sat quietly.
Then Roy said something that surprised me.
“Gloria knows all of this. She was there when Elmer told her.”
I couldn’t understand why she would oppose the burial.
That afternoon, I visited her house.
She was sitting at the kitchen table, sorting through my father’s belongings.
I placed the photograph in front of her.
She looked at it and immediately pushed it away.
“I don’t want to discuss Walter.”
“Dad wanted to be buried at McPherson.”
“He wanted many things.”
“Why did you submit that cemetery authorization?”
She stood up.
“Because I was trying to make things easier!”
“Easier for whom?”
Her eyes filled with tears, but her voice remained firm.
“You have no idea what it was like living with a man who spent half his life remembering people who weren’t coming back.”
I didn’t answer.
She continued.
“Every year, he went to veterans’ reunions. Every year, he came home quieter. I loved your father, Kurt, but sometimes it felt like he was living in another time.”
For the first time, I understood that her anger wasn’t entirely about money.
She had spent years competing with memories she could never replace.
But that didn’t give her the right to ignore his final request.
I told her Roy and the others were organizing transportation.
She shook her head.
“You can’t afford thirty vehicles.”
I almost smiled.
“I’m not paying for thirty vehicles.”
The next morning, Roy called me.
“Kurt, we’ve got thirty trucks confirmed.”
“Thirty?”
“Thirty pickups. Some coming from three counties away. A few old boys are bringing their grandchildren.”
Then he added something else.
“We’re also bringing Walter’s photograph. Elmer would have wanted that.”
I looked out the window.
For the first time since Dad died, I felt that everything might finally be right.
But there was still one problem.
Gloria had refused to release the funeral arrangements, and the funeral home wouldn’t finalize transportation until the authorization dispute was resolved.
Then, at 4:15 that afternoon, the funeral director called.
“Kurt, your father’s wife has just come in,” he said.
“She wants to speak with you.”
When I arrived, Gloria was standing beside the arrangement table.
In her hands was a small envelope.
“I found this in Elmer’s desk,” she whispered.
And when she opened it, I saw a handwritten note addressed to her.
