It was the first time I truly understood what a talented woodworker Ash was, and told him so, but he had other plans. He’d worked two jobs for over a year after graduating from high school to save up, got himself a generous scholarship and left to study economics in Denver. I’d cried every day for months, but then Brad died, and with Mom already gone, Ash insisted on leaving college and coming home to take care of me. This was something else he no doubt couldn’t recall, more details from his life that had disappeared. Memories he’d left me to mourn.

“Maya?” Ash called out, his voice sounding uncertain now. “Is everything okay?”

No, I wanted to shout. Do you have any idea what you put me through?

Of course he didn’t. He wouldn’t know since he’d left two years ago that my life had been hell. How, at least three times a day, every single day, I’d opened the browser and plugged in Asher Bennett, crossing my fingers. My heart rate would accelerate, as it did whenever I searched for my stepbrother. I’d wonder if today might be the day I found something, hoped it would be good news but was always terrified I’d stumble across an obituary instead.

I’d never found anything pertaining to the Asher Bennett I knew. A man with the same name had been nominated for a music award in New York, but I hadn’t needed to click on the link to know it wasn’t my Ash, who’d always maintained he had no musical talent whatsoever, and would’ve preferred making an instrument to the torture of learning how to play one. He’d taken my school recorder as a joke once, and performed a mangled version of “Happy Birthday,” and I swear no mice had come within a hundred yards of the house since.

Every time I continued my searches, playing with the parameters, a little voice would sneak into my head, whispering all the terrible things that could have happened to Ash, conjuring up images of the different ways he might have died in an accident, his decomposing body lying in a ditch somewhere, yet to be discovered. I’d never believed it. I’d have known if he were gone, felt it deep inside my heart.

I’d been right.

I grabbed the photo albums and walked back to the kitchen. “Let’s see if these help,” I said, settling next to him.

Ash turned the pages, his fingers touching the photographs, lingering as I pointed out who was who. “These are my parents?” he said, touching the picture. Rosalie stood behind Brad, her arms wrapped around his waist, both of them smiling. Her hair was as dark as Ash’s, but he had his father’s eyes, the perfect combination of his parents. “What happened to them?”