Page 6 of Echoes

“I don’t know. It was too dark. Could’ve been brown or black. Maybe even dark-green.”

“What else can you remember?”

“He had dark hair. Kind of shaggy, I think. That’s it.”

“White? Black?”

“White,” she said, trying to recall as much as she could to help. “Maybe not. I’m not sure. Not black, but I don’t know if he was white or darker. Is that right? Darker skin?”

“Like, Hispanic?” the officer asked as he took down notes.

“Maybe. I don’t know. It was just too dark.”

“Okay. How tall was he? Taller or shorter than your father?”

“He looked like a bear. In the dark, he looked like a bear. I didn’t know it was a person at first. Ithinkhe was taller, but I don’t know.”

“Okay,” the officer replied. “That would be it for now. We’ll ask you some more questions later.”

“He killed my father, and I was right there. Why can’t I remember him? Why didn’t he come in here? The windows are glass. He could’ve broken them.”

“I don’t know. Let’s just be glad that he didn’t, okay?”

Eliza moved to sit next to her mother and joined her in staring off into space until the officers finally put them into a police car and drove them away from the cabin that they were only supposed to be in for three nights to have some family time before Eliza started high school.

Almost Sixteen Years Later

“She made me hike,” Eliza said to her mother. “Far.”

“It was eight miles,” Lydia explained and reached for a potato chip from the bowl that Eliza’s mother had put out. “And the waterfall was beautiful; you have to admit that,”

“That’s great, honey,” her mother said but sounded far away.

“The hike?” Eliza asked.

“Yes, that,” her mom said. “Honey, I have something I need you to do.” She looked over at Eliza, but her eyes were still unfocused.

Eliza wasn’t sure she’d seen her mother’s eyes really focused since before her father had been murdered right in front of them.

“Okay. What?”

“Can I help?” Lydia asked.

“Um… Yes, that would be great. There are some boxes of your father’s that I need to move into storage now that I’m downsizing this house.”

When they’d moved, leaving their own town behind, her mother had gotten them a three-bedroom home, but now that she was getting a little older and the only one living here, the house was too big for her, so she would be moving into a one-bedroom house a few miles from here.

“You don’t want them in the house with you?”

“There won’t be space,” her mother replied. “And I have a storage unit all rented. I signed a year-long contract. That’ll give me time to get settled and see if Idowant to take anything out of storage. After that, I’m going to donate or trash things, so go through all those boxes and take whatever you want before you move them.”

“What’s even in there?” Lydia asked.

“Some of his clothes. There are knickknacks and his collectibles, too. He never met something he couldn’t collect.” The woman laughed. “Baseball cards, coins, stamps; you name it. He collected it all. He even had a bottle cap collection going for a while.”

“Why did he stop?” Lydia asked and leaned over the counter to grab another chip.

“He was murdered,” Eliza’s mother replied matter-of-factly and looked at Lydia as if she’d been stupid to ask.

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