I stood there in the weak yellow light of our trailer, reading the note over and over like the words might turn into something else if I stared long enough.
Luke,I’m sorry. I can’t fix this. Don’t come looking for me.—Dad
That was it. No explanation. No address. No money taped under the coffee can. No “I love you,” not even the fake kind. Just an apology that looked rushed and ashamed, like he couldn’t even stand to sit down while he wrote it.
Outside, a truck door slammed somewhere in the dark. A dog barked three trailers over. The neon OPEN sign at the gas station across Route 12 buzzed red through our cracked window.
I read the note one more time, then folded it and put it in my back pocket because I didn’t know what else to do.
I was nineteen years old, broke, tired, and standing in a trailer that wasn’t going to be mine by morning.
My father, Wade Mercer, had been a decent man once. At least that’s what people in town used to say. He worked at the feed warehouse, coached little league one summer, fixed old engines in his spare time, and brought my mother sunflowers from the roadside in July. Then Mom got sick. Cancer came in like rust, slow and silent at first, then everywhere all at once. She died when I was fourteen.
