Chapter 22: The Yard

He drove south and west, away from the lights.

He turned down a gravel road along the river.

The South Branch was black and slow under the bridges.

I knew this road.

I'd ridden down it a hundred times in my father's pickup, eating a donut, in a hard hat too big for me.

"Damiano," I said.

He didn't answer.

He stopped the car in front of a chain-link gate.

The headlights lit up a sign wired to the fence.

It was green with white letters, faded and peeling, with a rust stain running down from one bolt.

MORELLI CONSTRUCTION. SINCE 1999.

My father had painted that sign himself, the year before I was born.

I got out of the car.

I put my hand flat on the sign. The paint flaked under my palm.

"It went to auction three years ago," Damiano said behind me. "The bank wanted it gone. I was the only bidder."

"You bought my father's yard."

"I bought a lot on the river. Then I came out and saw the sign, and I couldn't take it down."

He unlocked the padlock and pushed the gate open.

The yard was empty. Gravel and puddles and a crane boom lying on its side by the water.

At the back was my father's old office trailer, up on cinder blocks.

I used to do my homework at the desk inside while Dad yelled at suppliers on the phone.

Damiano went up the steps and unlocked the door and turned on the light.

It was clean inside.

The space heater ticked on.

My father's desk was still there, against the back wall, with the same coffee ring burned into the top.

On it, squared to the edge, were six black sketchbooks.

And one small blue book with a bank's name stamped on the cover in gold.

"Sit down," Damiano said.

I sat in my father's chair.

He picked up the top sketchbook and put it in my hands.

He stood back by the door with his hands in his coat pockets.

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