Page 278 of Property of Whiskey

“Hard enough.”

“What happened?”

He doesn’t answer. He doesn’t need to. I know before he reaches into the envelope again.

Another photograph comes out. This one looks ordinary. That makes it worse.

Sixteen-year-old me is walking out of Paradise High School with a backpack over one shoulder, ponytail swinging behind me as I head toward Daddy’s old truck.

I stare at it.

The picture was taken from across the street with a long lens. I can tell from the compressed distance, from the angle, from how completely unaware I am that somebody is watching me.

My skin goes cold.

Whiskey’s chair scrapes once against the floor.

Daddy turns the photograph over and slides it toward me.

Written across the back in black ink:

A GOOD FATHER KNOWS WHEN TO STOP ASKING QUESTIONS.

For several seconds, the whole kitchen disappears.

I don’t hear the refrigerator humming or the old clock ticking above the stove. I don’t hear Whiskey breathe or Daddy shift in his chair.

I turn the photograph over again. Me at sixteen. Completely unaware.

“Who sent it?”

“No return address.”

“When?”

“Three days after I started asking questions about Pearly Gates.”

“You told nobody?”

“No.”

“Mama?”

Daddy’s face changes. “She was already gone.”

Of course.

Sixteen. Cancer. Funeral. Daddy standing in this same kitchen after everybody left because neither one of us knew what the hell to do without her.

Then this. A photograph of me.

I look up. “You let them scare you.”

Daddy closes his eyes. When he opens them again, there’s no Sheriff Dix left. Just my father. His eyes are wet. “Yes.”

One word. No excuse. No denial.

“You stopped looking.”