The zipper of the travel bag was thick and made of heavy brass. It resisted my pull at first, catching on the canvas lining, but I tugged it back until a small gap opened. Inside, among the plastic bags of tees and a sleeve of white balls, was a folded piece of paper. It was the heavy bond paper Mark used in his home office, not the cheap lined pads we kept by the kitchen phone.
I reached down and pulled it free, expecting a receipt for golf balls or a bag tag from his last corporate outing in Ohio.
Instead, it was a folded printout of an email from Jason, sent to Mark’s personal address three weeks before we even purchased our family plane tickets.
My hand remained still on the damp paper as I read the subject line, which simply said Florida Tee Times.
The first line of the message was brief and written in Jason’s loud, casual style. He had confirmed three consecutive days of tee times at a luxury golf club two hours south of our resort, starting Thursday morning.
