Page 86 of Where the Snakes Sleep

“Well, perhaps Alberte knew that.”

“Then why not leave it to nobody?”

“Property has to pass somewhere.”

“He could’ve sold it.”

“Yes.”

“Destroyed whatever was hidden.”

“Yes.”

“But he didn’t.” Ryan’s gaze drifts toward the photograph of Le Mas. “Maybe he wanted someone to find it.”

I’ve considered the same. “If he did,” I say, “he left remarkably poor instructions.”

Ryan snorts. “Sounds like my family.”

The tension in his shoulders softens slightly. He rubs at the back of his neck. “I hate this.”

“I know.”

“No, I mean I hate that he’s dead. I barely knew him, but now I have all these questions, and he’s conveniently not here to answer any of them.” There is a bitterness in his voice that feels strangely intimate, less anger at Alberte than anger at absence itself.

I know that particular frustration exceptionally well.

The dead are excellent at withholding answers. They leave behind artifacts and consequences, but rarely explanations.

For one treacherous instant, I think of my mother’s handwriting preserved in a box only a few meters away, the final letters becoming increasingly sparse as 2003 approached. I think of my father’s frantic notes to investigators, entire paragraphs underlined twice, then three times, as though sufficient pressure from a pen could force someone to listen.

I force the images away.

Ryan is watching me.

“What?” I ask.

“You went somewhere,” he observes softly.

“I am here.”

“You know what I mean.”

“I was thinking.”

“About what?”

My parents.

Henri.

You.

Instead I say, “About Alberte.”

Ryan accepts that, nodding.

Another omission. Another piece neatly removed from the truth.