“Good lord. Good lord!” She laughed, hard and honest. I couldn’t help but laugh along.

“What’s so funny?”

“My papa, smuggling guns and liquor. This is a man who couldn’t look at a painting unless it had boats in it, who thought boiled potatoes were the finest delicacy on earth, who enjoyed listening to marches, for god’s sake. He just—he never seemed that interesting!”

“They have a way of surprising us after they’re gone.”

“If only they’d let us see how interesting they were before, maybe we could have been friends.”

“Maybe we could have loved them.”

“Instead of spending every night waiting on the steps for them to come through the front door!”

We cackled at that, harder than we should have, harder than we wanted to, until our shoulders were sore and tears burned our cheeks.

“A smuggler,” said Juliette, several times, until she wasn’t laughing anymore. “If I’d thought about it at the time, I would have put it together, but I had no desire to let such thoughts cross my mind.”

“It’s always easier not to.”

“And now, because I took the easy route, he’s gone.” She took a long draft. This time, she didn’t cough. She peeled a piece of blackened wood and tossed it into the river. It floated for a moment before the current sucked it down. “What was your father’s name?”

“Virgil Carr.”

“Virgil Carr.” She clapped her hands together, and her eyes lit up. “Wait! Just one moment. I remember him! The cop, of course. The cop!”

“You met him?”

“He came to our house once, on Christmas Eve. This must have been ten years ago, or more. He was in his dress uniform. It was terribly stained.”

“By that time, his standards had relaxed.”

“I could tell, from the liquor on his breath. He wanted to speak to Papa. He was terribly upset. We were in the middle of dinner. I was shocked Papa even answered the door. I could tell they hadn’t seen each other in a long time. Virgil couldn’t meet his eye, but Papa greeted him without judgment, without rage.”

“Was that unusual for him?”

“He loathed drunks and could not abide men who let their emotions get the best of them. I expected him to turn your father out, but he welcomed him inside, fixed him a plate of food, and brought him into his office. Mother and I were stunned.”

“Did Virgil talk?”

“He said . . . he said something odd. ‘They’re all gone.’ Said that several times. It was more than a drunk’s rambling. There was something about his tone of voice that sliced right through me. He sounded empty.”

“He was.”