brother as funny, restless and charming enough to leave parties with new friends. Granddad expected both sons to work with wood. Dad loved it; Luis preferred another life.
“He wanted to travel,” Dad explained. “Photography, mostly.”
I remembered an old camera I’d once found in Granddad’s closet.
“When Granddad started planning this workshop, he assumed Luis would come back.”
“But he didn’t?” Derek wanted to know.
“He came back once.”
Dad looked down at the tabletop.
“There was an argument.”
There’d been no violence, just years of resentment erupting in one argument: Granddad offered both boys the workshop land, Luis rejected it, and Dad accused him of abandoning the family. Luis called Dad’s obedience a poor substitute for loyalty.
“And then?”
“He left.”
“For forty years?”
“Eventually he wrote.”
Dad exchanged a glance with Mom.
“I didn’t answer.”
The admission plainly cost him.
“Why?”
“Because every year that passed made
