Standing amid the sea of alabaster headstones, Finn felt a breeze on his neck, redolent of fresh-cut grass and newly turned earth. Where’d you go, Dad? he wondered. We’d all love to know.
The roll of film his sister had found, with his father’s initials on the small yellow can, was the best hope of finding out. The film expert, Camille Adams, was finally going to reveal his father’s last images, taken somewhere in Cambodia decades before.
The thought made him lengthen his strides as he headed for his rental car. Maybe the courier charged with picking up the processed film would be back already. Finn got in and grabbed his mobile phone from the console. It indicated multiple voice mails from the courier company. As he tapped the phone to play the messages, Finn thought, Please, Camille Adams. Don’t let me down.
“You don’t sound happy,” said Margaret Ann Finnemore, her voice coming through the speakers of the rental car.
Finn stared at the road ahead as he drove across the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, heading for the Delmarva Peninsula. Delaware-Maryland-Virginia. He had to cross state lines just to find Camille Adams.
“That’s because I’m not happy,” he said to his sister. “The film was supposed to be ready today, and the courier company can’t even locate the woman responsible for developing it. She totally flaked out on us. Stopped answering her phone, isn’t reading text messages or checking e-mail.”
“Maybe something came up,” Margaret Ann suggested reasonably. In the Finnemore family, she was known as the reasonable sister.
“Yeah, she blew me off. That’s what came up.”
“She came so highly recommended. Billy Church—the guy at the National Archives—gave her such a strong recommendation. Didn’t he say she’s done work for the Smithsonian and the FBI?”
“He did. But he didn’t say we’d need the FBI to find her. I should’ve called her references instead of just checking her website.” The site for Adams Photographic Services had featured dramatic examples of photos she’d rescued or restored. It had also displayed a picture of Camille Adams, which had caught his attention. She was a beauty, with dark curly hair and faraway eyes—but apparently, no sense of responsibility.
“I’m sure there’s an explanation.”
“I don’t need an explanation. I need to see what was on that roll of film, and I need to see it before the ceremony.”
“You couldn’t have sent someone else all the way out there?”
“The courier bailed after waiting around for an hour. Everybody else in the family has a job to do, so I decided to track her down myself.”
“Wouldn’t it be great if there were pictures of Dad?” Margaret Ann sounded wistful. As the eldest of the Finnemore siblings, she had the most vivid memories of their father. Finn had none of his own, which was probably why each surviving photo meant so much to him. “If there are any shots of him, they’d be the last ever taken. We could add them to the display at the White House.”
Finn tempered his expectations. “He shot that roll long before selfies were a thing.”
“Maybe one of his fellow officers or men took a picture of him.”
Finn had about a dozen things he could be doing instead of driving out to the edge of the known world, but he wanted to get his hands on those pictures. He hated the idea of letting his family down. The tightly knit clan consisted of steps and halves in every combination, and somehow it all worked. The somehow was his mom. They all revolved around her wellspring of strength and love.
Tomorrow would have been his father’s seventieth birthday. On the night before Richard Arthur Finnemore had been deployed on a mission to Cambodia, he had kissed his children good night, and then made love to his wife one last time. Nine months to the day after that, Finn was born to a woman who had recently been informed that her husband was missing in action. Sergeant Major Richard Arthur Finnemore had performed an act of heroism, surrendering his position to the enemy in order to protect a group of men involved in a covert operation.
And he had never been seen again.
Tavia Finnemore had managed to put her life back together. In time, she fell in love with a guy who was completely unfazed by the fact that she had three kids. In fact, he had two of his own. They went on to have two more boys together. It was an unwieldy tribe of a family, filled with noise and chaos, pathos and laughter, and most of all, love. Yet all his life, Finn had felt the absence of his father, a man who had died before Finn had drawn his first breath of air. It was entirely possible to miss someone you’d never met. He was walking, breathing proof of that.
“We’ll find out soon enough,” he said, “assuming the film expert didn’t abscond with the goods.”
“She didn’t abscond. Why on earth would she abscond with an old roll of film? And besides, who says ‘abscond’ anymore, except maybe my overeducated history-professor brother?”
“I hope like hell she didn’t.” Finn had no patience for people who didn’t keep their commitments. If he found the woman—and he fully intended to, even though it meant a two-hour drive from Annapolis—he was going to have some choice words for her.
“Promise you’ll call the minute you find out if she was able to salvage any of the pictures. Oh my gosh, Finn, I can’t believe what’s happening. A presidential Medal of Honor ceremony at the White House. For our dad.” Margaret Ann’s excitement bubbled through his phone’s speaker.
“Pretty surreal.” The whole Finnemore-Stephens clan would be in attendance—the family his father had before he was reported MIA, and the family his mother had started when she married Rudy Stephens. More than four decades after the shocking telegram had reached a young woman with two little girls and a babe in arms, his mom was finally getting closure.
Then a thought occurred to him. “Shit. I’m supposed to pick up my dress uniform at the cleaners this afternoon, and here I am driving across the Chesapeake.”
“If you were married again, you’d have a wife to help you out with stuff like that.”
He gave a bark of laughter. “Seriously? That’s your rationale for wanting me to remarry? You just set the women’s movement back fifty years.”
“Everyone needs a partner. That’s all I’m saying. You were so happy when you were with Emily.”
“Until I wasn’t.”
“Finn—”
“You’re still ticked off at me for not liking the last one you set me up with.”
“Angie Latella was perfect for you.”
He winced, remembering the painfully awkward setup his sisters had organized. “I don’t get why you and Shannon Rose—and Mom, for that matter—are on a mission to get me married off again. Because the last time turned out so well for me?”
The women in his family were endlessly preoccupied with his love life. They were convinced that his life would never be complete until he found true love, settled down, and started a family. He wasn’t afraid to talk about it. He was afraid because they were probably right.
He wanted the kind of love his siblings had found. He wanted kids. Yet he had no desire to see if his luck would change the second time around. These days, he wasn’t even sure he knew how love happened, and how it felt.
“It’s been three years. You’re ready. And Angie—”
“She was a half hour late, and she had an annoying laugh.”
“That’s code for she didn’t have big boobs and an obsession with extreme sports.”
“Come on. I’m not that shallow.” Christ, he hoped not. His sister loved him, but when she tried to boss him around, he always pushed back.
“Then what about Carla? Now, she has boobs, and she’s a world-class mountain biker.”
“Daddy issues. And you’re the one who told me a woman with a bad history with her father is a problem waiting to happen. Besides, I live overseas now, remember? Not interested in a long-distance gig.”
“That’s temporary. You’ll be back in the States soon enough.”
He decided now was not the time to tell her his visiting professorship in Aix-en-Provence had been extended. “Can one of your kids pick up my stuff at the cleaners? It’s the one on Annapolis Road.”