“Can we call him?”
Noah laughed through tears.
“Apparently Lily is running the investigation now.”
Harriet smiled.
“We contacted him.”
Noah’s laughter stopped.
“What did he say?”
“He asked whether Caleb was alive.”
Noah looked down.
“And?”
“We told him Caleb died last month.”
Noah wiped his face.
Harriet continued.
“Then he asked whether Ruth Mercer was alive.”
Anna shook her head.
“No.”
“When we told him she had passed away, he became very quiet.”
Anna understood.
Three people had waited too long.
Two had died before the silence ended.
One remained.
“What about me?”
Anna asked.
“Did he ask?”
Harriet nodded.
“He asked whether Thomas Mercer’s little girl still lived in Kentucky.”
Anna began crying.
Lily wrapped herself around her mother.
Harriet smiled gently.
“He would like to speak with you.”
The call happened that afternoon.
Anna sat beneath an oak tree with Noah beside her.
Colter, Tess, and Lily waited several yards away.
Noah placed the phone on speaker.
It rang twice.
A man answered.
“Hello?”
Noah froze.
The voice belonged to family and stranger at once.
“Uncle Eli?”
Silence.
Then a breath.
“Noah?”
“Yes.”
“Oh.”
A trembling laugh came through the phone.
“You sound like Caleb.”
Noah closed his eyes.
“You sound nothing like I remember.”
“That’s because last time you heard me I was twenty-two and knew everything.”
Noah laughed through tears.
“I’ve spent half my life thinking you were dead.”
“I know.”
“Why didn’t you call?”
Eli was silent.
“Because every year I waited made the next year harder.”
Noah looked toward the mine.
“Dad thought you died down there.”
“I know.”
“He blamed himself.”
“I know.”
“How could you let him?”
Eli did not answer immediately.
When he did, his voice was quiet.
“Because I was young enough to believe shame was something you could outrun.”
“It isn’t.”
Noah wiped his eyes.
“He died believing he failed you.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Sorry doesn’t give him those years back.”
“No.”