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“Catherine, I’m Robert Mitchell, Joshua’s older brother. These are our brothers, Alan and David. We’re here about the farm.”
Of course they were. They weren’t here about Joshua, or to meet the wife their brother had loved for twenty-four years. They were here about the suddenly valuable property.
Ignoring the increasingly aggressive knocking, I moved to the desk, opened the computer, and entered the password: ZO5151998Mitchell.
The screen came to life immediately, opening to a folder labeled For Catherine.
Inside were hundreds of video files, each named with a date—starting from two weeks ago, the day after his funeral, and extending a full year into the future.
With trembling fingers, I clicked the first one.
Joshua’s face filled the screen. Not the thin, pale version from his final months, but healthy, vibrant—clearly recorded some time ago. He smiled directly into the camera, that crooked grin that had always made my heart skip.
“Hello, Cat. If you’re watching this, then I’m gone, and you’ve come to the farm despite my years of making you promise not to.”
He chuckled softly.
“I should have known you wouldn’t be able to resist, especially after Winters told you about it.”
“I’ve made a video for every day of your first year without me. One year of me keeping you company while you grieve. One year of explaining everything I should have told you while I was alive.”
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