By midafternoon, we had pieced together more than I wanted to know and less than we needed. The official trail was patchy, but one thing became clearer. Daniel had not served as continuously as he implied. There were gaps. Large ones. Years where his location and employment were murky. Years where he seemed to move from one rental address to another across Ohio and West Virginia. Years that never once came up in his polished stories at family gatherings.
Mark wrote notes by hand on a legal pad, old-school neat block letters.
1985 enlistment. 1989 transfer. 1992 possible separation. 1993 to 1998 unclear.
I hated that yellow pad. I hated the calm way he wrote on it. Most of all, I hated the small part of myself that had begun looking for patterns too.
At around four, I called my cousin Linda in Dayton. If every family has a historian, Linda was ours. She kept Christmas cards in labeled boxes, remembered anniversaries no one else did, and could tell you who attended whose graduation party in 1978 without pausing to think. She and Daniel had stayed in touch more than I had during certain years.
When she answered, I forced brightness into my voice.
“Linda, it’s Emily.”
“Well, look who remembered she has a cousin,” she said warmly.
We exchanged the usual pleasantries. Her hip was still bothering her. Her grandson was thinking about transferring colleges. The Methodist church had finally replaced the carpet in the fellowship hall. Normal things. Anchoring things.
Then I said:
“Can I ask you something about Danny?”
There was a pause.
“What about him?”
“Did he ever live near you for a while in the nineties?”
Another pause. Longer this time.
“Why are you asking?”
I glanced toward the den where Mark sat quietly waiting.
“Because I’m trying to piece together his timeline.”
Linda exhaled.
“He was in Dayton for a bit,” she said carefully. “Not long.”
“Doing what?”
“I don’t know exactly. Some kind of warehouse work, I think.”
I gripped the phone tighter. Warehouse work. That’s not what he told us.
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“Well,” she said, her voice lowering, “a lot about that period didn’t make sense.”
I closed my eyes.
“Linda, what aren’t you telling me?”
She hesitated again, and when she spoke, her tone had changed. Softer. Older.
“Emily, I always assumed you knew more than I did.”
“Knew what?”
“That Danny had a rough stretch.”
The room seemed to tilt.
“What kind of rough stretch?”
“Money troubles. Drinking for a while. He wasn’t himself. Your Aunt Ruth let him stay with her for three months, and then he disappeared again. We didn’t ask too many questions.”
“Why not?”
“Because your mother was so proud of him,” Linda said. “And because at our age, sometimes families make peace with the story they’re given.”
That line cut deeper than she knew.
After I hung up, I sat very still at the kitchen table. Mark came in a minute later.
“Well?”
