Wes Coffey

My dad and I don't talk about it.

I know he knew.

I know he knew the whole time.

He looked at me at Thanksgiving last year and he said, I should have told you.

And I said, it's done.

And that was all either of us has said about it.

That was the whole conversation.

My wife thinks I had a breakdown up there.

She thinks the grief finally caught up with me three years late.

She thinks the notebook was my grandfather going senile at the end.

She thinks the picture on the trail camera was a trespasser.

She thinks the voice at the door was a black bear.

She's a good woman and I love her and I am never going to try to convince her otherwise.

I burned the notebook too.

I want you to know that.

After I got home, I took the notebook and all the old ledgers out into my backyard and I burned them in a fire pit and I watched them go.

I don't know if that was the right thing.

Maybe somebody should have kept them.

Maybe there's a historical society that would have wanted them.

But I didn't want anything of that land left in my house.