I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with this now. Gene is gone and Frank has been gone longer and the only thing left is this note that says my husband was better to people than I even knew.

I keep thinking I should have asked Gene more questions while I still could. But I didn’t. And now I can’t.

I sat down in Frank’s old chair and the cushion gave under me the same way it always did. My fingers found the spot on the arm where the cloth was rubbed thin from years of his elbow resting there while he read the paper. The house smelled like the lemon cleaner I had used that morning and underneath it the faint motor oil scent that never quite left the place even after he was gone.

I kept going over the part in the note where Gene said Frank bought him a sandwich and coffee. I could picture the gas station on Route 12, the one with the flickering sign. Frank would have paid with the crumpled bills he kept in his front pocket. He never carried a wallet.

“Some kid needs a break,” he might have told the night manager later. That was the kind of thing he said when he thought nobody was listening.

The clock in the hall ticked louder than usual. I thought about how Gene must have written the note, probably on one of those yellow pads he kept by the phone at the shop. His handwriting was always neat for a man with hands that big. Tom said the paper looked like it had been folded and unfolded a few times.

I almost got up to find the number for the shop again.

My hand reached for the phone on the table but I stopped. What would I even ask? Gene was retired somewhere and Frank wasn’t here to tell his side. The story was just sitting in a file drawer now.

” I never forgot what he did,” the note had said. Those words kept turning over in my head like a stone in a pocket.

Back then Frank would come home after helping Gene and wash up at the kitchen sink. The water ran dark for a minute from the grease on his arms. I’d hand him the towel and ask how work went.

” Long night,” he’d answer. ” Nothing worth talking about.”

I never pushed him on it. That was our way. If something mattered he would bring it up when he was ready. Most times he never did.

The dent in the cushion pressed against my back. I leaned into it and thought about all the times I pulled into that shop and let Gene say the warranty line without asking a single question. Seven years of pretending it made sense because the money was tight and I was tired.