Then nodded.
“Okay.”
He crossed the lawn.
I went inside.
Sleep did not come easily.
The next morning I called Samuel Reed.
He answered on the second ring.
“Hayes?”
“You saved my number?”
“Mercer warned me you don’t procrastinate.”
“That is wildly inaccurate.”
Samuel laughed.
“Coffee?”
An hour later I met him at a diner near the interstate.
Walt was already there.
I stopped beside the booth.
Samuel looked guilty.
“I hope you don’t mind.”
Walt lifted both hands.
“I told him everything I know, which is currently nothing.”
I slid into the booth.
“Fine.”
Samuel pushed an old photograph across the table.
Four men stood beside a military aircraft.
The picture was faded.
The uniforms belonged to another era.
I recognized my father immediately.
He was twenty-six or twenty-seven.
Thin.
Dark hair.
An expression I remembered mostly from childhood photographs.
He stood second from the left.
On his shoulder was the scroll.
I touched the photograph.
For a few seconds I couldn’t speak.
“That’s him,” Samuel said.
“I can see that.”
“He was quiet.”
“That didn’t change.”
“He was also funny.”
“That did.”
Samuel smiled.
“He talked about your mother constantly.”
I looked up.
“My mother?”
