He looked at her.
She continued.
"Your father tried to protect this river by telling the truth. If you want to honor him, begin there."
Elias lowered his gaze.
Then asked the question that had haunted him since childhood.
"Did he die here?"
The old woman did not answer immediately.
Finally, she whispered, "I do not know where his body lies."
The words struck Elias harder than a clear statement of death might have.
Because they left hope alive.
And hope, after twenty years of disappointment, was almost unbearable.
That afternoon, Elias walked alone beside the river.
He carried the broken watch in one hand.
The water moved slowly between stones worn smooth by countless seasons.
Cottonwood branches cast shadows across the bank.
Somewhere upstream, children laughed.
Elias sat on a fallen log and opened the watch.
The hands remained frozen at eleven seventeen.
They had not moved in twenty years.
He remembered trying to repair it as a boy.
Prying at the damaged mechanism with a kitchen knife.
Losing a tiny screw.
Crying because he feared his father would be angry when he returned.
His mother had found him sitting on the floor with the broken pieces.
She had gathered them gently.
Then told him that his father would care far more about seeing him than about the condition of any watch.
Elias had believed her.
For years, he waited.
Every horse approaching their home made him run toward the road.
Every stranger wearing a familiar hat made his heart race.
Every Christmas carried the terrible mixture of anticipation and disappointment.
Then his mother died.
The farm was sold.
The war came.
And Elias stopped waiting.
Or thought he had.
Now the waiting had returned.
A quiet voice interrupted him.
"You look sad."
He turned.
Ren stood a short distance away.
She wore her familiar veil.
The blue ribbon remained tied around her wrist.
Elias attempted a smile.
"Thinking."
"About your father?"
He stared.
She sat beside him.
"Willow Song told me."
He nodded.
For a while, they watched the river.
Then Ren asked, "Did you love him?"
Elias looked at the watch.
"I was seven."
She waited.
He continued.
"I loved him the way children love people they believe can fix everything."
Ren nodded slowly.
"And when he disappeared?"
"I spent years believing I had done something wrong."
She turned toward him.
"Why?"
Elias gave a faint smile.
"Children can make themselves responsible for just about anything."
He looked toward the river.
"I thought perhaps I broke the watch too badly. Or complained too much. Or said something that made him decide not to come home."
Ren was silent.
Then she whispered, "I know what that feels like."
Elias looked at her.
She touched the edge of her veil.
"For five years, I believed there was something so shameful about my face that even my father couldn't bear for strangers to see it."
Elias's expression softened.
"Ren."