I stared.
“How?”
“Tom used to come into the shop.”
Julian looked at me.
“Dad went there?”
“I didn’t know.”
“He didn’t buy much,” Rebecca continued. “Strings. Picks. Sometimes sheet music. Mostly he talked to my father.”
Something about her tone made me uneasy.
“About what?”
Rebecca hesitated.
“Music programs for children with disabilities.”
Maya’s father looked up.
Julian went perfectly still.
“My dad?”
Rebecca nodded.
“He volunteered with Mobility Bridge.”
I sat down.
“No, he didn’t.”
The words came out too quickly.
Rebecca did not argue.
“He did some consulting. Quietly. Mostly fundraising and equipment assessment.”
“He worked in accounting.”
“Exactly.”
My husband had spent fifteen years investigating budgets and contracts for local nonprofit organizations.
Suddenly a memory surfaced.
Thomas at the kitchen table late at night.
Stacks of papers.
A spreadsheet open on his laptop.
When I had asked what he was working on, he had said, Just helping someone untangle a mess.
