“At first.”

“And after that?”

He took a slow breath.

“After that, I didn’t know how to come back.”

Claire stared at him.

“That’s not an answer.”

“No,” he said. “It isn’t a very good one.”

She sat down.

For the first time, she noticed how frightened he looked.

Not frightened of dying, although perhaps he was.

Frightened of saying the wrong thing.

She had imagined this conversation many times. In some versions, Thomas defended himself. In others, he apologized so convincingly that she forgave him.

She had never imagined him sitting in a hospital bed, unable to explain eighteen years in a way that satisfied either of them.

“Did you ever try?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Then why don’t I remember?”

“Because trying isn’t the same as doing it.”

She looked away.

Thomas continued.

“I wrote to you. I called. Sometimes I came to town and lost my nerve before I reached the house. Once, when you were sixteen, I sat outside your school during a basketball game. I thought I might see you afterward.”

Claire turned back.

“You came to my school?”

“Yes.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

“You were with your friends. You looked happy.”

“So you left?”

“Yes.”

She shook her head.

“Do you understand how ridiculous that sounds?”

“I do now.”

Claire stood.

She had come expecting either an explanation or a confrontation.

Instead, she had found a man who seemed painfully aware of his failures but unable to change what had happened.

“I need to go,” she said.

Thomas nodded.

“Thank you for coming.”

She reached the door.

“Claire?”

She stopped.

“I did love you.”

She kept her hand on the door handle.

“I know you probably don’t believe that.”

Claire looked back at him.

“I believe you loved me when I was little.”

Then she left.

Chapter Eight – The Wooden Box

Three days later, Claire visited the storage unit.

Michael accompanied her, although she insisted she did not need help.

The facility stood beside a highway outside Harrisburg. Rows of metal doors stretched across a concrete lot, and the air smelled of rain and warm asphalt.

The key from Thomas’s envelope opened unit 214.

Inside were several pieces of old furniture, two suitcases, a set of tools, and the wooden treasure chest Claire remembered from childhood.

She knelt beside it.

The lid was scratched. One corner had been repaired with a small brass bracket.

Claire ran her fingers over the wood.

“I remember this,” she said.

Michael crouched beside her.

“What is it?”

“My dad used to keep all our projects in here.”

She opened the lid.

Inside were photographs, drawings, school certificates, and small objects wrapped in tissue paper.

There was the motor from their cardboard airplane.

A cracked plastic compass.

A photograph of Claire missing her front teeth.

A faded birthday card she had made for Thomas when she was seven.

At the bottom lay a stack of envelopes tied together with string.

Each bore her name.

Some were addressed to the house on Willow Street. Others carried the addresses of her university dormitory and later apartments.

None had postage stamps.

Claire untied the string.

The earliest letter was dated October 18, 2010.

Dear Claire,

I drove past a pumpkin patch today and remembered the year you insisted on choosing the ugliest pumpkin because you thought nobody else would want it. Your mother said it looked like a potato. You were furious with both of us.

I hope you’re doing well in school. I know you don’t want to hear from me right now, and I understand why.

I wanted to tell you that I think about you every day.

Love, Dad.

Claire read another.

Then another.

The letters covered years.

Thomas wrote about ordinary things. He described his work, the people he met, and the places he visited. He remembered Claire’s childhood with extraordinary precision.

He also wrote about his failures.

In one letter, written when Claire was seventeen, he admitted that he had accepted the North Dakota job partly because he wanted to escape the pressure at home.

I told myself I was going because we needed the money. That was true, but it wasn’t the whole truth. I was tired and frightened, and I liked the idea of going somewhere I could pretend everything was simple.