Chapter 2: The Blue Car and the Bent Envelope
The padlock clicked open.
Dan pushed the shed door with his shoulder — it was stiff, like it hadn't been meant to open easily — and stepped back so I could see first.
I didn't understand what I was looking at.
Then I did.
It was a car.
Old.
Small.
The kind you'd see rusting in someone's driveway and never think twice about.
But this one had been sanded down to bare metal, every panel straight, every seam clean.
The paint was deep blue — not factory blue, the kind you pick yourself because someone told you once that it was your favorite color.
I had told him that.
Three years ago.
I didn't think he'd heard me.
"Dan—"
"It runs," he said.
"I checked it this morning."
My throat closed.
"You were gone every night because of this?"
He looked at his hands.
"I didn't want you to see it until it was right."
I had gone through his pockets.
I had been so sure he was leaving.
Then Mom appeared in the shed doorway behind us.
She was holding something — an envelope, old and slightly bent, like it had been carried a long time.
"This came last week," she said quietly.
"I didn't know whether to give it to you today."
The return address was in handwriting I didn't recognize.
May you like
But the name in the top left corner made Dan go very still.
It was my father's name.
