Pete rubbed his face. “You really are Elias's kid.”
Toby waited.
“I hated what he did,” Pete said. “I hated that he let us grieve him. I hated that I spent nights looking for a body while he was eating breakfast somewhere under another name.”
Toby lowered the rag.
Pete continued. “But if I had been him and had a little boy to protect, maybe I would have made choices I once swore I never would.”
“So you do not know.”
“No.”
Toby nodded. “Uncle Silas says not knowing is an answer sometimes.”
Pete stared toward the garage door. “Your uncle got annoyingly philosophical with age.”
Toby smiled.
A few weeks later, Pete brought him an old photograph of Elias that had never made it into the clubhouse album. In it, Elias stood beside a half-restored motorcycle, both hands black with grease, looking directly into the camera with a tired, crooked grin.
On the back, Pete had written one line.
Your father, before anybody turned him into a story.
Toby kept that photograph on his dresser.
The silver lighter stayed beside it.
Spring 1989 arrived with wind, dust, and the smell of orange blossoms drifting into neighborhoods from surviving groves. Sarah's title paperwork finally finished. The bungalow, for the first time, was legally hers without cousin arrangements or informal understandings.
Martin Keene brought the recorded deed himself.
Sarah read her name twice.
Toby read it three times.
OWNER: SARAH HARRIS.
He touched the paper as if it could disappear.
Martin said, “This one is safe to believe.”
Toby looked embarrassed that the lawyer had noticed.
Sarah framed a copy and hung it in the hallway.
Silas said nothing when he saw it.
He simply stood in front of the frame for a long moment, then nodded.
That summer marked one year since Toby walked into the Rusty Anchor.
He remembered the date because Bones did.
“Anniversary of the smallest fence in club history,” Bones announced when Toby arrived at the garage.
“What fence?”
“You. Walking in trying to sell stolen-looking antiques.”
“They were not stolen.”
“I know that now.”
“They did not look stolen.”
“You looked stolen.”
Toby punched Bones in the arm with all the force a growing eleven-year-old could manage.
Bones pretended to collapse.
Silas watched from the doorway, shaking his head.
Later that afternoon, he called Toby into the office.
On the desk sat the brass compass and pocket watch from the attic box. Toby had brought them weeks earlier because Silas asked if he could have them professionally cleaned.