A barbecue.
One showed Rebecca around eighteen months old sitting on Evan’s shoulders.
She stared.
“I remember nothing.”
“You were little.”
“Did he leave?”
Cole’s mouth tightened.
“He disappeared.”
Rebecca looked up sharply.
“You said he died.”
“Eventually we got a death notification.”
“From who?”
“Police.”
“Body?”
Cole hesitated.
Rebecca noticed.
“You never saw him?”
“No.”
“What happened?”
Cole rubbed his face.
“His truck went off a canyon road east of Kingman.”
“They found it burned.”
“Found personal effects.”
“No body recovered intact enough for identification.”
Rebecca’s face changed.
“Then how did they know?”
“Dental fragments.”
“Identification records.”
“Police told us.”
Rebecca stared.
Something felt wrong.
“So my mom thought he ran away.”
“Maybe.”
“But police said he died?”
“A year later.”
Rebecca’s heartbeat accelerated.
“Why a year later?”
Cole looked uncomfortable.
“The accident wasn't discovered immediately.”
“How long?”
“Eleven months.”
Rebecca stared.
“You're telling me my dad disappeared, nobody found him for eleven months, then somebody found his truck burned in a canyon?”
“Yes.”
“And everyone just accepted that?”
“No.”
Cole’s voice hardened.
“We searched.”
“For how long?”
“Until they told us there was nothing left to search for.”
Rebecca looked at the box.
At sixteen years of silence packed into cardboard.
Then she saw something beneath the photographs.
A black notebook.
“What’s that?”
Cole removed it.
“Evan’s.”
“You read it?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because I found it this morning.”
Rebecca stared.
“Where?”
“In the archive cabinet.”
“Why was it there?”
Cole shrugged.
“Your father used the clubhouse office constantly.”
“He probably left it.”
Rebecca took the notebook.
First page.
Numbers.
Mileage.
Bike repairs.
Receipts.
Then entries.
Short.
Messy.
Not a diary.
More like reminders.
Rebecca flipped.
One line stopped her.
Claire scared again. Says Rebecca’s fever hit 103. Going home early.
Rebecca swallowed.
Next page.
Rebecca finally said “bike.” Claire says it was “bite.” Claire is wrong.
Rebecca laughed unexpectedly.
Cole smiled.
She turned another page.
Birthday Saturday. Buy yellow balloons. She likes yellow this week.
Rebecca’s laughter disappeared.
Her birthday.
He knew.
He cared.
The mother who raised her had insisted Evan barely remembered he had a child.
The notebook said otherwise.
Then Rebecca found the last written page.
Three lines.
Claire says she can't keep doing this.
Need to settle things before Rebecca gets old enough to remember fighting.
Meeting R. tonight. If he agrees, we start over Monday.
Rebecca stared.
“Who is R?”
Cole looked over her shoulder.
“I don't know.”
“What does ‘start over’ mean?”
“I don't know.”
She looked at him angrily.
Cole lifted both hands.