My eyes narrow. “How did you know that?”

She points to the lower right corner of the photo. Her nail is short, bitten down past the nail bed so that the skin is red, inflamed. “The date is right here.” She peers closer at another picture, this one of me on a sled attached to the back of Dad’s snow machine. I can’t be more than eight, and even though I can’t see his face, beside me is my best friend, Tate. I can tell from the too-big and frayed orange snowsuit he wears and the cracked goggles that cover half his face. His dad didn’t have a lot, but whatever he did have, he spent on alcohol and cigarettes. My skin tingles with memory: the sting of snow whipping across my face, my nose running from the cold, Tate behind me, screaming in my ear as we flew over the road. “Sledding behind the snow machine. It was my favorite thing to do in winter.”

“It looks so fun,” she says.

She looks at another picture, this one of Dad standing in front of BTI. I took it after he got the building manager position. “Who’s that?” she says. “He’s a big guy like you.”

Her words warm me. It’s an accurate description of my dad, who is larger than life both in physical stature and in his presence. “That’s my dad, Vance Hines. He’s the building manager here.” I look down at her. “Do you know him?”

Her glasses have fallen to the tip of her nose. She pushes them up with one finger, and I notice that her face has lost the cheerful exuberance from a moment ago.

“We made flowers for him today at school, but I didn’t know he was your dad.”

I press a hand to my chest, touched. “Wow, that’s so kind of you. I’m sure he’ll love them.”

“Oh no, Ms. Claire.” Her eyes get wide and her bottom lip trembles, and when she speaks it’s hardly more than a whisper. “You don’t remember?”

My body goes cold. Tears heat my eyes at the way she says it, with her eyes a brighter blue than before, her mouth twisted, and I don’t have to guess because on some level I already know.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

I don’t want to know.

Something writhes in my gut, threatens to cut me open. Sadness weighs upon my skin, and I have to lean against the wall or I’ll fall. I am overcome with the feeling that I have lost something I can’t ever get back.