“Nothing.”
“You’re standing on the porch staring at the door.”
Richard looked at the faded red paint.
“I haven’t been here in six years.”
“I’m aware.”
He touched one of the pencil marks carved into the doorframe.
His own height marks.
Age seven.
Nine.
Twelve.
Sixteen.
He smiled faintly.
“You kept these.”
“Why would I remove them?”
Richard’s fingers rested on the mark labeled thirteen.
“Dad wrote this one.”
“He wrote most of them.”
Richard’s face tightened.
Evelyn unlocked the kitchen.
Nothing had changed much.
Same oak table.
Same copper kettle.
Same curtains.
New refrigerator.
New stove.
Richard stared at the wall.
A photograph hung near the pantry.
His father at twenty-three.
Army uniform.
Richard crossed the kitchen slowly.
“You put this up.”
“It’s been there fifteen years.”
He swallowed.
“I never noticed.”
Evelyn set water on the stove.
“No.”
He turned toward her.
“I want to see the western ridge.”
She stopped.
“You don’t have to.”
“I know.”
“Investigators already photographed everything.”
“I know.”
Evelyn studied him.
“Why?”
Richard looked down.
“Because I said you wouldn’t notice.”
She felt the words land again.
He continued.
“And I need to see what I said didn’t matter.”
They drank coffee first.
Then drove out in Evelyn’s old truck.
Richard offered to drive.
She refused.
“You still brake like you’re angry at the road.”
“I’m sixty-five.”
“And you still brake badly.”
He laughed.
The western ridge was nearly three miles from the farmhouse.
When they arrived, Richard became silent.
The damage was worse in person.
Empty patches cut through the woods.
Massive stumps remained like amputations.
Deep machinery tracks scarred the earth.
Branches lay crushed.
Richard stepped out of the truck.
Evelyn watched him walk toward the nearest stump.
He put one hand on the cut wood.
“How old?”
“One hundred and six years.”
His shoulders dropped.
“This one?”
“Your grandfather planted it.”
Richard closed his eyes.
They walked farther.
Evelyn stopped beside another stump.
“That one was yours.”
Richard frowned.
“Mine?”
“Your father planted it the week you were born.”
Richard stared.
“No.”
“Yes.”
He crouched.
His hand moved across the rings.
Evelyn watched his shoulders begin to shake.
“I didn’t know.”
“You did once.”
He looked at her.
“Your father showed you when you were twelve.”
Richard covered his mouth.
“I forgot.”
Evelyn looked toward the damaged ridge.
“That’s the problem with forgetting where things came from.”
Richard sat on the stump.
For several minutes, he cried.
Evelyn let him.
She did not comfort him immediately.
Some grief needed space.
Finally he said, “Can we replant it?”
“We can replant trees.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
Evelyn looked at him.
“No.”
Richard nodded.
“I know.”
“You cannot replace one hundred years.”
“I know.”
“But you can plant something someone else may stand beside in a hundred.”
Richard looked up.
“That’s what Dad would say.”
