“...like watching a train wreck,” Jep said.

“Not him, though,” Andy said. “I was proud of him. He was direct and honest.”

I stepped down into the kitchen, where all of them were eating slices of pastrami out of the butcher’s wrapping, first dipping the slices in a saucer of mustard. If anyone felt a lack of composure, it wasn’t evident from their food consumption. “I was the one who looked like a train wreck?”

“They meant Jill, listening to Jill, and I know what Dad means. It just rolls right over anything you have to say because she has the moral imperative,” Stefan said.

I thought of all the other narratives, the girl who sold the drugs, the drugs themselves, all part of my quest to find another story, another part of a story, all part of that niggling sense that there was something I didn’t know, something that was important, stoked by the caller with the sobbing voice, her assurances that she knew the truth and that Stefan was in danger. Was this all because, even after all this time, my own mind was incapable of fully accepting the one truth? And yet, I didn’t know that Stefan was part of a love triangle. Why had Stefan never said so, in so many words? Or hadn’t I given him a chance? I assumed that what I had heard was the truest thing, that Belinda was avoiding Stefan because he got too deep into drugs and she had no use for that. Even Julie wondered why I hadn’t asked the police about Belinda and Stefan’s friends, why I had never looked through the police reports.

I decided right then that I would do this. It was the last stone, but it was unturned. And then I would get on with my life, no more digging in the ashes. I would call the detective, Pete Sunday, tomorrow, and ask him to send me the files.

“I’m going to Will’s. See you in the morning,” Stefan said.

“Wait,” I said. “Did this do what you wanted it to?”

He stopped for a moment and went into the kitchen cupboard where I kept a bin with spare toiletries, rummaging until he found a disposable razor and a toothbrush, which he put in his pocket.

“Mom, I’m going to go to church tomorrow. Meet me there?”

I swallowed hard, and nodded.

“I’ll take the truck. The truck is behind you. So you can get out in the morning, Mom. I’m not going to hide.”

Andy said, “Good man.”

“I wish I hadn’t done it though,” Stefan continued.

“Son, you tried to express your truth and that’s all you can ask of yourself,” Jep said.

“But I looked fat,” Stefan said. “I looked like I had three chins.”