“Why would you write this?”
The driver went pale.
“I didn’t.”
“Then who did?”
He stared at the handwriting.
“Your mother.”
“My mother gave you this?”
The driver nodded.
I looked at the photograph again.
My mother had been gone for years.
Yet this man had kept a photograph of me for more than three decades.
“Who are you?”
“My name is Ben.”
The name stirred something.
Not quite a memory.
More like the feeling that I’d heard it long ago.
Ben watched my face.
“Still nothing?”
I shook my head.
“Tell me.”
He leaned against the truck.
“I was friends with your older brother.”
I stared at him.
“My brother?”
Ben nodded.
“Adam.”
For a second, the ice cream truck, the street, and even Ellie’s hand against my arm seemed to disappear.
I hadn’t heard a stranger say my brother’s name in years.
Hearing it from this man felt like someone had opened a door I’d spent most of my life keeping shut.
