Her voice broke.
“But I know there is a part of him that will remain nineteen forever, waiting beneath the bleachers for a girl who never stopped loving him.”
The tape clicked off.
Neither of us spoke.
Then Lucas noticed something beneath the player.
A final envelope had been taped to the underside of the cabinet.
He removed it and turned it over.
The handwriting was not Douglas’s mother’s.
It was my mother’s.
On the front were two words:
For Douglas.
I took a step toward it.
“Open it,” Lucas said.
I shook my head.
“It’s addressed to him.”
“He asked you to find the truth.”
I held the envelope between my fingers. The paper had softened with age, and the seal had begun to loosen.
Inside was a single photograph.
I recognized the place before I recognized the people.
The football bleachers.
Douglas and I were sitting beneath them, nineteen years old, our shoulders touching. He was looking at me, not at the camera. I was laughing at something outside the frame.
