He nodded.
Aaron’s voice came back to her from fourteen years earlier.
Mack taught me how to rebuild a transmission.
Mack once rode forty miles in a thunderstorm because I forgot my wallet.
Mack thinks vegetables are a government conspiracy.
Mack is impossible.
Mack is family.
Later the stories changed.
Mack doesn’t understand why I left.
Mack thinks every man owes the road more than he owes home.
Mack and I aren’t talking right now.
Then no more Mack.
Jenna looked toward the memorial patch.
A.P.
Her husband’s initials.
“You have his patch.”
Mack touched it unconsciously.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
He looked surprised by the question.
“Because he was my brother.”
Jenna’s jaw tightened.
“Brothers usually know where each other’s families are.”
There it was.
Fair.
Mack took the hit.
“You’re right.”
Nora looked toward him.
Mack lowered his head.
“I didn’t know.”
“How?”
Jenna asked.
Not loudly.
Worse.
“How could you not know?”
Mack looked toward the pavement.
“Aaron and I hadn’t spoken in six years.”
Nora’s eyes widened.
Jenna’s anger dimmed slightly.
Mack continued.
“I learned about his death from an old riding friend three months afterward.”
“I tried the last number I had.”
“Disconnected.”
“Sent a letter to your old address in Arkansas.”
“Came back.”
Jenna stared.
“We left Arkansas two years ago.”
“I know now.”
“Did you look?”
“Yes.”
“How hard?”
Mack’s face tightened.
Not hard enough.
That was the answer.
He did not lie.
“Not hard enough.”
Jenna looked away.
Mack continued:
“I thought if Aaron wanted me in his life, he would’ve called.”
“He did.”
The words came from Jenna almost before she decided to say them.
Mack froze.
“What?”
Jenna looked toward him again.
“He called you.”
“When?”
“Six years ago.”
Mack’s throat tightened.
“He called you after Eli’s…”
She stopped.
Wrong timeline.
Eli was too young.
She corrected.
“After Nora started kindergarten.”
“He had your number written on a piece of paper.”
“He went outside.”
“Came back twenty minutes later.”
“Said you didn’t answer.”
Mack could hear his heartbeat.
He remembered.
A number he did not recognize.
Three missed calls one evening while he was in a club meeting.
A voicemail.
He had deleted it without listening because the storage on his phone was full.
Or maybe he had listened.
No.
He could not remember.
The uncertainty was worse.
Jenna watched his face.
“He never tried again.”
Mack’s voice came rough.
“I didn’t know.”
“I believe you.”
That did not make it kinder.
Eli called again:
“Milk.”
Jenna looked toward the van.
Her anger collapsed beneath motherhood.
She took the grocery bag.
“Thank you.”
Mack nodded.
She opened one carton.
Poured milk into the toddler’s sippy cup.
Eli grabbed it with both hands.
Drank greedily.
Nora watched.
Her whole body relaxed.
Mack watched Nora.
That was when he understood.
The girl had not been hunting coins because she wanted a snack.