Daniel watched his father pick up a pad of paper and a pencil from the table, leaning closer to him. He smelled like cigarettes and something sweet and flowery he used to comb his hair with. “This is a guessing game called What Is It? Where Is It?” he’d said. “I’m going to draw something, yeah, and I want you to tell me what it is and where it is. Do you understand?”

Daniel nodded. He’d never heard of the game before. His father began to draw a circle with spears around it. “The sun!” Daniel yelled out, louder than he expected to.

“That’s right,” his father said. “Where is it?”

Daniel pointed up to the ceiling but he meant the sky. “Outside,” he added.

His father smiled, and he felt a warm happiness spread through his body as he anticipated the next drawing. A flower, a tree, a cup, a train, all guessed correctly.

His father paused and lit a cigarette before smiling down at him. “You’re a smart boy. You did good, son,” he said.

Daniel thought about that afternoon now, remembering it as the first time his father had ever called him “son.” He didn’t realize how good it made him feel, only to never hear him say it again. It was such a small legacy to leave behind.

* * *

Daniel held the ashtray in the palm of his hand. One morning, months after his father had disappeared, he was outside playing in the yard and had found the ashtray half buried in the mud. His mother’s face turned pale when she saw him washing it off in a bucket of water. “Give it to me,” she’d said, her voice sounding strange, cold and flat. Her eyes were dark and annoyed as she snatched it quickly out of his hands. Daniel wanted to say he was sorry because he’d made her mad though he wasn’t quite sure why. Later, when he went inside all the anger was gone and his mother was back to herself. Daniel never saw the ashtray again until this morning. He finished his coffee and stood to put it back where he found it, buried deep in the pantry where she wanted it.

Ever since Mama Natua had mistaken him for his father, Franklin Abe had crept back and lay heavily in his thoughts. The ashtray was just another reminder. It felt as if his father kept returning, only to disappear all over again. Daniel tried to remember when he finally realized his father hadn’t left for work, he had left them.

* * *