He was quiet for a long moment. Then he set down his coffee and looked at me.
“Forty-two years ago, I lived in this house.”
“Bought it when I was twenty-six. Right after I got back from Vietnam. Me and my wife Linda. We were going to raise a family here.”
He picked up a hammer, turned it over in his hands.
“We had a daughter. Charlotte. Beautiful little girl. Red hair like her mama. Laugh that could light up a room.”
His voice cracked.
“She was four years old when it happened. I was supposed to fix this fence. Linda had been asking me for months. But I kept putting it off. Always had something better to do. Riding with my buddies. Working overtime. Drinking at the bar.”
He set the hammer down.
“One afternoon, Charlotte was playing in the backyard. Linda was inside making lunch. The fence had a gap in it. A big gap that I’d been promising to fix for six months.”
I felt my stomach drop.
“Oh God,” I breathed. “Earl, I’m so sorry.”
“Linda never forgave me. I never forgave myself. We divorced a year later. Sold the house. I’ve spent forty years trying to outrun what happened.”
Tears were streaming down his weathered face.
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