Hank stared at her.
Emma leaned against the car.
“I found drafts.”
“How many?”
“Five.”
Hank laughed sadly.
“He said he wrote versions.”
“He kept changing them.”
“Was he planning to send it?”
“I think so.”
“When?”
Emma looked at the motorcycle.
“Soon.”
That word again.
Someday soon.
The most dangerous phrase in any family.
Hank nodded.
Emma opened the driver’s door.
Then stopped.
“There’s something else.”
Hank waited.
“Two weeks before the accident, he asked whether I’d ever been to this roadhouse.”
Hank’s chest tightened.
“What did you say?”
“No.”
“He said maybe we’d come here after the museum trip.”
Hank looked toward the drawing.
“So he was…”
“I think he was planning to see you.”
Hank closed his eyes.
Almost.
The cruelest distance.
Not years.
Almost.
Emma touched his forearm.
“He didn’t die angry.”
Hank opened his eyes.
“You can’t know that.”
“I lived with him.”
“You can’t know what he felt about me.”
“No.”
She nodded.
“But I know what he felt about the future.”
Hank said nothing.
“He had your photograph in Eli’s backpack.”
Hank looked at the boy sitting in the back seat.
“He had your motorcycle saved on his phone.”
Emma swallowed.
“He had directions here in his search history.”
Hank leaned against the car.
“He was coming.”
“I think so.”
Hank stared at the road.
Emma let him.
Finally he whispered, “I would’ve opened the door.”
“I know.”
“What if he thought I wouldn’t?”
“He probably did.”
Hank looked at her.
She gave him a tired smile.
“Both things can be true.”
He nodded.
Again.
Both things.
Daniel had been happy and missed him.
Daniel had been hurt and still wanted to return.
Hank had loved his son and failed him.
Both things.
Emma got into the car.
Eli rolled down the rear window.
“Grandpa?”
The word stopped Hank completely.
Eli did not seem to notice what he had done.
“Yeah?”
“Don’t erase Dad tonight.”
Hank looked toward the motorcycle.
“I won’t.”
“Promise?”
“I promise.”
The sedan left the parking lot.
Hank stood there until it disappeared.
Ray came beside him.
Neither spoke for a while.
Then Ray looked at the drawing.
“You keeping that?”
“Yes.”
“Marker won’t survive weather.”
“I know.”
“What are you gonna do?”
Hank looked at the tank.
“Figure it out.”
Ray smiled faintly.
“Daniel would enjoy this.”
“What?”
“You obsessing over preserving vandalism.”
Hank laughed.
“Shut up.”
That night, Hank did not go home.
He rolled the motorcycle into the service bay behind the roadhouse, where Ruth’s brother occasionally worked on bikes.
He placed a lamp beside it.
For two hours he researched paint-marker preservation.
At nine, he called a custom painter named Wes.
Wes answered angrily.
“Some people sleep.”
“You don’t.”
“How do you know?”