Then:
“You still sound serious.”
Dad laughed.
It was not polite laughter.
It was the helpless laugh of someone suddenly twenty-seven again.
“And you still insult people before saying hello.”
“That was hello.”
They spoke for ninety minutes.
Not about everything.
Forty years did not fit into one call.
They talked about weather.
Work.
People who had died.
Places Luis had traveled.
Granddad.
Grandmom.
Then Dad mentioned the workshop.
Luis went quiet.
“I remember that land,” he said.
“So do I now.”
“Did you build the shop?”
“We’re rebuilding it.”
“We?”
“My sons.”
Another pause.
“You have sons.”
“Two.”
“You never sent photographs.”
“I know.”
“Well, that was inconsiderate.”
“Yes.”
Derek stared at me.
I had never heard Dad agree so easily to criticism.
Then Luis said, “Send some.”
Dad smiled.
“I will.”
They began calling every Sunday.
Sometimes for ten minutes.
Sometimes for two hours.
Luis had become a commercial photographer.
He had married, divorced, and remained close friends with his former wife.
He had no children.
He had spent twenty years photographing architecture and craftspeople across the Southwest.
When he heard about the community-room idea, he became interested.
“Don’t make it sentimental,” he warned.
Dad sounded offended.
“It won’t be.”
“You are turning Granddad’s old property into a woodworking school.”
“Partly.”
“That is extremely sentimental.”
Dad looked at us.
“Your uncle is annoying.”
From the phone, Luis said, “I heard that.”
Three months later, he came to Carmona.
Dad spent the entire morning pretending he was not nervous.
He reorganized the workshop twice.
He changed shirts.
Mom changed it back.
“Blue looks better.”
“I’m seventy-two.”
“Blue still looks better.”
Luis arrived in an old silver station wagon carrying two camera cases and a small suitcase.
I knew him immediately.
He had Dad’s eyebrows.
That was enough.
He stood beside the car looking at the house.
Dad walked down the front path.
Neither rushed.
Neither cried dramatically.
Neither delivered a speech.
They stopped two steps apart.
Luis looked at him.
“You got short.”
Dad stared.
“You got bald.”
Then Luis opened his arms.
Dad hugged him.
Forty years disappeared badly.
Awkwardly.
Imperfectly.
Which was exactly how they should have disappeared.
Later, at dinner, Luis studied Derek and me as though we were historical artifacts.
“So you’re the accountant.”
