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again.”
    “He’s in prison?”
    “Yes. Rotting away in a cell on the other side of the country. He might as well be dead. I kinda wish he was.”
    “Did you ever try to contact him? Try to find out why he left?”
    He shrugged. “No. Why bother? Just like we didn’t look at the old photographs. We just … we just moved on. What else were we gonna do? He obviously didn’t want to be with us. That’s all we needed to know.”
    He folded his hands and put them on the table.
    “He’d already done a few short stints,” he said, “even before the DWI and the vehicular manslaughter.”
    “For what else?”
    “I don’t know exactly. I think it was burglary, receiving stolen goods. A whole bunch of chickenshit crimes like that. Until they had to start locking him up. Like I said, my mother never talked about it, but other people on the rez would find some excuse to mention it to me. There’s more gossip on the rez than any sorority, I swear.”
    “When did he go away for good?”
    “It was right around the time I moved off the rez. I think I was just starting work on the cabin.”
    “So right before I moved up here. You were just about done with your roof then.”
    He picked up the photograph one more time. Then he closed his eyes and spun it across the room. It hit the wall and fluttered to the floor.
    “Vinnie, what is it? Is there something you’re not telling me?”
    “Don’t you see? I’m just like him.”
    “No, you’re not. Just because you look like him—”
    “I’m exactly like him, Alex. I’m a carbon copy.”
    “You didn’t leave anybody.”
    “Yes, I did. Hello, what were we just talking about? I move off the rez and build my own place up here.”
    “That’s not leaving. You’re right down the road. You go back all the time.”
    “Yeah, I go back all the time. Then I leave again. Every time I go, that’s how I feel. Like I’m doing a miniature version of my father’s routine.”
    “Oh, come on, that’s nonsense.”
    “Actually, I did him one better.”
    “How? What do you mean?”
    “I’m just talking about my mother and my sisters and my little brother, right? What about my family? My wife, and my kids?”
    I looked at him. Like what the hell.
    “I don’t have that, right?”
    “Yeah, no kidding.”
    “Okay then. There you go. I live all by myself and I don’t even have a girlfriend right now. I’ve totally avoided the whole family thing altogether.”
    “Vinnie…”
    “My father would be proud. Just don’t even have a family in the first place.”
    “You’re not making any sense now.”
    “Yeah, well, your father didn’t run out on you.”
    I leaned back in my chair. On most days I would have called him on the bullshit, but this wasn’t most days. He was still one-quarter drunk and three-quarters grieving, so I figured I could give him a break.
    “Okay, I’ve been a patient man,” he said. “Where’s that bottle?”
    *   *   *
     
    I drove him down to my cabin and produced a bottle of Jim Beam and two glasses. I was about to sit down at my kitchen table, but he grabbed the works and took it outside. When I caught up to him, he was back in the passenger seat of the truck.
    “Where are we going?” I said as I got behind the wheel.
    “I don’t know. I just don’t feel like being inside anymore.”
    “Fair enough.”
    I turned the key and backed out. When I got to the main road, he had me go north. Which could only mean one destination. We rode in silence, until he opened up his window and let the night air rush into the truck. He took the cap off the bottle and took one long pull, to hell with the glasses. Straight Jim Beam for a man who doesn’t drink, that should’ve rung him good, but he didn’t even make a face.
    “Take it easy,” I said, but he ignored me.
    Twenty minutes later, the road ended. We were at Whitefish Point. The Shipwreck Museum was to our left, the old lighthouse rising high above us. To our right was the birding