“You need to talk to somebody.”
I laughed bitterly.
“About what?”
“About that night.”
I shook my head.
“Talking won't bring Evan back.”
“No.”
“Won't make Mara answer.”
“No.”
“Then what's the point?”
Bishop looked toward me.
His expression softened.
“Maybe you deserve to sleep through a night without punishing yourself.”
I stared.
For a moment, I couldn't speak.
Then I turned back to the transmission.
Bishop stayed until dinner.
He cooked soup.
Forced me to eat.
And spent the rest of the evening talking about motorcycles because he understood I wasn't ready for anything else.
Over the years, he kept trying.
He suggested counseling.
Offered to ride with me to Arizona.
Asked whether I wanted help contacting Mara through appropriate family channels.
But he never pushed past the boundary she'd established.
He understood something I took far too long to accept.
Loving somebody didn't give you the right to force them to speak before they were ready.
So I waited.
And the silence grew older.
When Rosie told me her mother had died, I felt nine years disappear in a single breath.
I was sitting in Lou's Diner with the yellow envelope in my hand.
The waitress had quietly cleared the plates from our booth. The trucker who grabbed Rosie had returned to his seat and was watching us with an expression that looked more ashamed than angry.
Outside, Evelyn Shaw remained beside the green pickup.
Rosie watched me carefully.
For a moment, I couldn't speak.
Then I looked at her.
“Sweetheart, how long ago?”
She swallowed.
“Seven months.”
I closed my eyes.
Seven months.
My daughter had been dead for seven months.
I'd spent those same months repairing motorcycles, buying groceries, paying bills, and riding through the mountains as though the possibility of seeing her again still existed somewhere ahead of me.
Now I understood it didn't.
I would never hear her voice again.
Never sit across from her at a kitchen table.
Never ask about the years we'd lost.
I looked down at the envelope.
The handwriting on the front was hers.
Not the pencil instructions that had brought me to the diner.
Those were Rosie's.
But the name written beneath them was Mara's.
I recognized the uneven curve of the M.
The way she leaned her letters slightly to the right.
And the little underline she always drew beneath important words.
Rosie touched my sleeve.
“Grandpa?”
My eyes filled.
Nobody had ever called me that.
I looked toward her.
She seemed frightened by my tears.
“Did I do something wrong?”
The question nearly broke me.
I shook my head quickly.
“No.”