“What moon thing?”
“That.”
She touched the area above David’s left eyebrow.
There was a small crescent-shaped mark.
David had gotten it when he was sixteen after crashing my brother Charlie’s bicycle into a fence.
Most people never noticed it.
I closed the album.
“We’re done cleaning.”
Ellie frowned.
“Why?”
“Because I’m tired.”
She followed me toward the attic stairs.
Then suddenly stopped.
“Oh!”
I turned.
“What?”
“He gave me something for you yesterday.”
Every hair on my arms rose.
“What do you mean?”
She ran downstairs toward her backpack.
A minute later, she returned holding something small.
“He said you’d know what it meant.”
She placed it in my palm.
My knees nearly gave out.
A red pocketknife.
One blade was broken.
The handle was scratched and worn.
And near the bottom were two letters carved into the plastic.
L.A.
My initials.
David’s father had given him that knife when he started working at the hardware store.
