“When I came home from prison, I knew most people would never trust me again,” he began. “Some had their reasons. I couldn’t change what I’d done, and I couldn’t force anybody to forgive me.”
He rubbed his hands together.
“So I stopped trying to convince people with words.”
He looked at the shelves.
“I decided to spend my time doing something useful.”
I walked toward the map.
“Did you plan all this from the beginning?”
“No. Not all of it.”
He reached for a metal box on the bottom shelf and opened it.
Inside were photographs, receipts, old notes, and envelopes filled with handwritten records.
He handed me a photograph.
It showed my mother standing beside the garden several years earlier, holding a basket of tomatoes. She looked younger and healthier than I remembered her looking in recent years.
On the back, Ray had written a date.
He gave me another photograph. This one showed me as a teenager, carrying a wooden box from the garage. I barely remembered the day, but Ray had kept the picture.
