He laughed.
That was the last time I heard him laugh.
Anna stopped reading.
A memory opened.
Not completely.
Not clearly.
A voice.
Warm hands.
The rough fabric of her father’s work jacket beneath her cheek.
And rain.
She began to cry.
Lily wrapped both arms around her.
Anna continued through tears.
Thomas told me Caleb’s brother might still be underground.
I begged him not to return.
He told me that if you were lost somewhere in the dark, he would hope another father would come looking for you.
I hated him for saying it because I knew then that nothing I could say would stop him.
At sunrise he left.
For years I told myself Caleb had taken him from me.
The truth is harder.
Thomas made a choice I could understand and still wish he had never made.
Both things can be true.
I kept George because you were holding him that morning.
Later, when I learned where Thomas had gone, I brought the rabbit here.
It was foolish.
It was sentimental.
It was all I knew to do.
Anna lowered the letter.
“Why underground?”
Noah pointed at the cassette.
“Maybe there’s more.”
The tape was labeled ANNA — WHEN YOU ARE READY.
Tess found an old portable cassette player in Dale’s motorcycle trailer after he remembered carrying one for charity-event music.
The batteries barely worked.
The tape hissed.
Then Ruth Mercer’s voice filled the shelter.
Older.
Softer than Anna remembered.
“If you are listening, Anna, then I am probably gone.”
Lily looked astonished.
“That’s Grandma.”
Anna squeezed her hand.
“Yes.”
Ruth continued.
“I have rehearsed this confession a thousand times.”
“Every version sounded like an excuse.”
“So I will not make excuses.”
“I was afraid.”
“I was afraid that if you knew your father came home, you would ask why I let him leave again.”
“I had no answer that did not make me hate myself.”
Anna closed her eyes.