“He sent me a picture.”
Julian frowned.
“Why?”
Rebecca opened her phone.
“Because of this.”
She showed us a photograph of the back of Julian’s guitar.
A narrow strip of masking tape was stuck inside the open case.
On it, in my handwriting, were four words:
Julian Vance — Keep playing.
I had written them years earlier when we had taken the guitar to a summer music workshop.
“I forgot that was there,” I said.
Rebecca nodded.
“My brother didn’t know who Julian was. But he remembered your last name.”
My throat tightened.
“How?”
She studied me carefully.
“Your husband.”
Julian’s head snapped toward her.
“My dad?”
My husband, Thomas, had died three years earlier after a sudden aneurysm.
There were still moments when someone used the present tense around his name and I expected him to walk through a doorway.
Rebecca’s expression softened.
“My brother knew him.”
