He came out from under the lift wiping his hands on a rag.
Aaron Mitchell wore navy coveralls with his name stitched over the pocket, and he moved careful on his left leg, planning each step a fraction ahead. He saw Dylan first, then Nico, then me, and he stopped.
"You came," he said.
"I said I would," I said.
He nodded, tucked the rag into his pocket, and held out his hand. His grip was firm and dry, a working hand, callused at the palm.
"Ma'am," he said, and then he caught himself. "Sorry. Julia."
"Aaron is fine too," I said. "If we are doing first names badly."
That got a small, surprised laugh out of him. "Okay. Julia."
Behind him the garage smelled like hot metal and coffee. On the wall someone had taped photographs at eye level. Two little boys in a plastic pool, both missing front teeth. The same boys in Halloween costumes, one a dinosaur who had lost an argument with the tail.
"Yours?" I asked.
"Micah and Jonah," he said, and his whole face changed. "Six and four. Jonah thinks he can fix cars by hitting them. Micah supervises."
Nico stayed by the workbench with Dylan, close enough to be present, far enough not to crowd us. I was grateful for that.
Aaron gestured to a pair of stools near the open bay door. We sat, and neither of us knew where to put our eyes.
"I rehearsed this," he admitted. "In the truck this morning. It sounded better in the truck."
"It always does," I said. "I rehearsed in the car and I was terrible at it."
Aaron smiled, but his hands stayed tight around his knees. "I do not want to make this strange."
"It is already strange," I said. "That might help, actually. We can just start there."
He let out a breath. "Okay. Strange it is."
He looked at me then, directly. "I remember your voice better than I remember most of that week. The net was cutting out and you kept coming back. You said, 'I am still here, Bravo, I am not going anywhere.' You said it three times. Same words."
I shook my head. "I do not remember saying that."
"You did. And later you said, 'Tell me about something ordinary.' I thought you were losing the signal. You were not. You wanted me talking."
"I wanted you awake," I said, and my voice was not as steady as I wanted it to be.
"You asked what I had in my pockets," he said. "I told you lint and a gas station receipt. You said, 'Good, hold on to that receipt, you can yell at them about the prices later.'"
A laugh came out of me before I could stop it, wet and startled. "That sounds like me. I wish I remembered it."
"You named states for me at one point," he said. "You said if I could argue with your list, I was still with you. I argued. You put Ohio in the wrong place on purpose, I think."
"I might have," I said. "That part feels true."
For thirteen years he had been a voice without a name I could keep, without a face, without any proof of an ending I could stand on. Now he was sitting two feet away in coveralls with grease under his nails, telling me my own words back to me.
I had to look down at my hands and breathe once, slowly.
"You okay?" he asked.
"Yes," I said. "Give me a second. You have had longer to practice having a face for this."
He waited. He did not fill it up with apologies, and I liked him for that.
The back door opened and Megan came in with a tray of coffees, her hair pulled back. She took in the two of us and made a decision the way people do who run households.
"Well," she said. "You two look like you need sugar and a subject change for exactly ninety seconds."
She handed me a cup. "I am Megan. I brought decaf for nobody, because nobody actually wants decaf."
"I like her," I said to Aaron.
"Everyone does," he said. "It is very efficient."
Megan set a cup by Dylan. "Drink. Talk about the boys, then you can go back to the heavy part with steadier hands."
It worked. We talked about Micah losing a tooth in a sandwich and Jonah naming the garage cat Transmission. My hands stopped shaking around the warm cup.
Then Aaron set his coffee down and turned his stool a little toward me.
"Do you want to hear it from my side?" he asked. "That night. What it was like under it."
"Yes," I said. "I do."
He nodded once, and began.
Chapter 25: What Aaron Carried