By then I had learned not to confuse what Thomas hadn’t told me with what Thomas hadn’t known.
The answer came from Martin.
When I called the music shop and mentioned Lucas, he fell silent.
“Martin?”
“You should come in.”
That sentence had become one of my least favorite arrangements of words.
Julian and I drove there after school.
Martin locked the front door and turned the sign to CLOSED.
Then he took us upstairs to an office.
“You know who Lucas is?” I asked.
Martin nodded.
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
“Because I didn’t know he was connected to this.”
“Connected how?”
He opened a drawer and took out an old photograph.
Thomas stood in the shop beside a boy in a wheelchair.
The child was about nine.
Brown hair.
Thin shoulders.
A guitar pick pinched between his fingers.
Julian stared.
“He looks like Dad.”
