Mr. Baron caught my elbow, but the letter slipped from my hand.
Two houses down.
Arthur’s workshop.
A narrow alley.
The smell of sawdust and bicycle grease.
Memory opened so suddenly that I could not breathe.
Memory opened so suddenly that I could not breathe.
“Silver Oak Street,” I whispered.
Mr. Baron nodded.
***
I had lived there until I was 14.
Then my parents died in a car accident, and I entered foster care. Strangers packed our house while I sat in a county office clutching a trash bag of clothes.
I never returned.
I had lived there until I was 14.
“I knew a guy,” I said. “Quiet. Dark hair.”
“Carl,” Mr. Baron muttered.
“No.”
The denial came too quickly.
The Carl I remembered was the quiet young man who lived with his grandfather and repaired bicycles behind their house.
The man I married had laughed easily and argued over books.
“I knew a guy.”
Mr. Baron lowered himself into the chair across from me.
“Carl lost both parents when he was seven,” he said. “Arthur raised him.”
I remembered Arthur’s cracked hands and gentle voice.
I remembered bringing him soup when he caught the flu because my mother said nobody should eat alone while sick.
Carl had stood behind the workshop door, watching.
“Carl lost both parents when he was seven.”
