So they went.
The Rusty Anchor had changed less than the people inside it. The same mahogany bar remained scarred and sticky despite Sal's best efforts. The same ceiling fan turned overhead. A newer jukebox had replaced the old one, but Bones claimed the music had gotten worse.
A long table had been set in the back room. On it were photographs from Elias's club years beside photographs Sarah brought from the Harris years: Elias holding infant Toby, Elias in a mechanic's uniform, Elias painting the bungalow porch, Elias asleep on the couch with a baby bottle still in one hand. For the first time, the two halves of his life occupied the same surface.
Silas stood at one end of the table staring at a photograph of his brother holding Toby.
“I never imagined him like this,” he said.
Sarah stood beside him. “Neither did he.”
Silas looked at her.
“He was terrified when Toby came home from the hospital,” Sarah continued. “He stayed awake the entire first night because he thought if he stopped watching, the baby might stop breathing.”
Silas smiled faintly. “Elias used to sleep through motorcycles starting three feet from his head.”
“Not after Toby.”
Across the room, Toby listened without pretending not to.
Dinner was simple: barbecue, beans, bread, peach pie. Sarah noticed the pie immediately.
“You planned that.”
Silas looked innocent. “Coincidence.”
“You are a terrible liar.”
“So was my brother.”
They ate.
Men told stories Toby had not heard before. Some were cleaned up for his age, but not polished into sainthood. Elias lost money in a ridiculous bet involving a motorcycle race against a pickup truck. Elias once spent an entire afternoon repairing a stranger's generator because the stranger's mother needed an electric medical device. Elias could be moody, arrogant, generous, impatient, and unexpectedly gentle with frightened animals.
Sarah contributed her own memories. Richard Harris once drove thirty miles back to a grocery store because the cashier had accidentally given him five dollars too much change. He also once lied to Sarah for three days about a broken kitchen chair because he had sat on it too hard and was embarrassed.
Toby laughed until his stomach hurt.
Then Pete Larkin asked the question everyone had quietly avoided.
“Did he ever regret us?”
The room went still.
Sarah looked at Silas before answering.
“He regretted hurting you.”
“That is not the same thing.”
“No.”
Pete waited.
Sarah folded her hands. “He did not regret leaving the life. He regretted the way leaving required him to erase people he loved.”
Pete looked down.
“He kept photographs?” Bones asked.
“Only a few. Hidden.”
“Of us?”
“Yes.”
Sarah reached into her purse and removed a small envelope.
Inside were four old photographs Elias had kept beneath the lining of a toolbox. One showed the original charter members outside the tire warehouse. Another showed Silas at twenty-five holding a beer and making a rude gesture toward the camera. The third showed Bones younger, thinner, and almost unrecognizable without his scar. The fourth showed Elias and Silas sitting on a curb beside a motorcycle with their shoulders touching.
Silas picked up the last picture.
“He kept this?”
“Yes.”
“After everything?”