Chapter 3 - The Funeral She Was Not Allowed to Attend
Rebecca arrived in Virginia two days after Thomas Wright’s funeral.
Her left arm was bandaged.
Burns covered her shoulder and upper back.
She walked with a cane and wore civilian clothes because her uniform had been destroyed.
A military liaison drove her to the family home.
Elaine opened the door.
For several seconds, neither woman spoke.
Rebecca’s face was bruised.
Her hair had been cut short after surgeons treated the burns near her neck.
Elaine stared at her as if she were a stranger asking for money.
“Dad is gone?” Rebecca whispered.
Elaine crossed her arms.
“The funeral was private.”
“I was his daughter.”
“You had years to act like one.”
Rebecca looked past her into the house.
Thomas’s photograph stood on a table surrounded by white flowers.
Beside it was an urn.
Rebecca took one step forward.
Elaine blocked the doorway.
“You cannot come in dressed like this.”
Rebecca’s breathing stopped.
“I was in a hospital.”
“So you say.”
The military liaison stepped forward.
“Ma’am, Captain Smith has been medically evacuated—”
Elaine cut him off.
“My daughter is not a captain.”
Rebecca stared at her.
The liaison removed an identification folder.
Elaine refused to look.
Instead, she called Curtis.
He came down the stairs wearing their father’s watch.
Rebecca recognized it immediately.
Thomas had promised the watch to her.
Curtis rested one hand over it.
“You shouldn’t have come.”
“I want to say goodbye.”
“You already did when you left.”
Rebecca’s knees nearly gave way.
The liaison steadied her.
Elaine closed the door slowly.
Rebecca stood on the porch listening to the lock turn.
That night, she stayed at a military medical facility.
She cried only once.
Then she requested every record connected to her father’s estate.
The following morning, an attorney called.
According to Thomas’s new will, Rebecca had received nothing.
Not the watch.
Not the house.
Not even a letter.
The document stated that Thomas believed she had lied about her military service and abandoned the family.
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Rebecca knew immediately that her father had never written those words.
👉 Thomas’s will did more than disinherit Rebecca—it repeated Elaine’s lies almost word for word.
