I hated him for saying that.
Not because he was wrong.
Because it sounded too much like:
Forget the other four.
I never did.
Six years passed.
The girls grew up around absence.
One daughter started college.
Another learned to drive.
The girls grew up around absence.
Sophie became the person who finally said what everyone else had apparently been thinking.
“Mom, we need to go through their things.”
I looked at her.
She was standing in the doorway of her brothers’ room holding an empty cardboard box.
“No.”
“Mom…”
“I said no, Sophie.”
“Mom, we need to go through their things.”
“We’re not throwing anything away, Mom.”
“Then why are you holding a box?”
“To donate what somebody could use.”
I stared past her.
That room wasn’t a shrine.
At least I told myself it wasn’t.
But too many things remained exactly where they’d been.
“We’re not throwing anything away, Mom.”
Some stupid part of me had never stopped expecting footsteps in the hall.
Sophie lowered her voice.
“They’re not coming back for these.”
That hurt.
She knew it.
Her eyes filled immediately.
“I’m sorry.”
I looked away.
Then reached for another box.
“Fine.”
She nodded.
“They’re not coming back for these.”
We started packing, but I stepped away to cook.
Dinner was still hours off, but I just needed an excuse to leave.
I couldn’t stay in that room any longer.
That afternoon, Sophie found the phone.
She came into the kitchen holding a black rectangle with a cracked corner.
“Mom?”
I couldn’t stay in that room any longer.
I looked up from the pile of old charging cables.
“Yes?”
“Wasn’t this Dad’s?”
My heart started pounding.
I took it from her.
It was Daniel’s old phone.
The one he’d told me he’d lost nearly a year before the fishing trip.
We’d searched the car.
The garage.
The couch.
“Wasn’t this Dad’s?”
Eventually bought him another.
“Where was this?”
“Bottom of the electronics bin,” Sophie said.
I flipped the phone over.
It was completely dead.
Sophie found a matching charger and plugged it in.
She sat beside it like she was waiting for a pulse.
“Mom, what if there are pictures?”
Sophie found a matching charger and plugged it in.
I froze for a second.
“Probably old ones.”
“What if there are videos? Voice notes..?”
I didn’t answer.
The phone finally powered on.
It automatically connected to our home Wi-Fi. A few minutes later, old photos began filling the gallery.
Then Sophie opened the gallery.
I couldn’t watch.
Not yet.
“What if there are videos? Voice notes..?”
So I left her at the table and went upstairs.
A few minutes later, I heard her running back.
“Mom…”
Something in her voice made me turn.
Sophie stood in my bedroom doorway holding the phone with both hands.
Her face had gone pale.
“What happened?”
She swallowed.
Her face had gone pale.
“There’s a video that synced from Dad’s account.”
My heart started racing.
“What kind of video?”
“It’s from the day before the fishing trip.”
I stepped toward her.
Sophie looked down at the screen.
Then back at me.
“Mom, I know what really happened back then.”
“There’s a video that synced from Dad’s account.”
I just stared at her. “What?”
“Dad wasn’t alone in it,” she whispered. “Uncle Dean was there.”
She pressed play.
Daniel appeared on the screen.
He’d propped his phone on the workbench while checking fishing gear.
He was alive.
Laughing.
I reached for the bedpost.
Then someone walked into the frame behind him.
Dean.
“Dad wasn’t alone in it.”
I stared.
“What is he doing there?”
Sophie didn’t answer.
On the video, Dean said, “I’m not going, man.”
Daniel looked up sharply.
“What do you mean you’re not going?”
I turned toward Sophie.
“Going where?”
She whispered, “Fishing, I think.”
My pulse spiked.
Dean had been invited.
“What is he doing there?”
In six years, he had never told me.
The video kept playing…
Daniel threw a life jacket onto the workbench.
“You need this weekend.”
Dean laughed bitterly.
“My girlfriend walked out three months ago, Dan. Fishing isn’t going to fix that.”
