“A man named Daniel,” she said, checking her ledger. “He lives up in the northern county. Nice man, very quiet.”

She gave me the address. I sat in my driveway for three days with that slip of paper on my passenger seat. I didn’t know what I was going to say. I didn’t even know if it was really him. But the star didn’t lie.

The drive north took four hours. I watched the trees change from the familiar oaks of home to the tall, dark pines of the upper peninsula. My heart felt heavy and hollow at the same time. I was terrified of what I might find.

I pulled into the gravel drive at 2:14 in the afternoon. The house was a modest place, painted a faded gray with a wrap-around porch. It looked tired, just like me. I sat in the car for a long time, watching the wind move the branches of a willow tree.

I finally got out. My legs felt like lead. I walked up the three wooden steps and heard them creak under my weight. I took a deep breath, trying to steady my shaking hands.

I reached out to knock. My knuckles were inches from the wood when the latch clicked. The door opened slowly.

A man stood there. He was older, his hair white and thinning, his face lined with the hard years. But the eyes were the same.

They were the blue of a clear morning sky, just like Danny’s.

He looked at me for a long time. He didn’t smile, but he didn’t look angry either. There was just a quiet, deep exhaustion in his face. He held a small wood-carving tool in his hand, the metal glinting in the light.

“I saw the star,” I whispered.

He didn’t ask which star. He didn’t ask who I was. He just stepped back and opened the door wider.

“I wondered if you’d ever find it,” he said. His voice was raspy, like dry leaves skittering on pavement.

I walked into his house. It smelled like cedar shavings and stale coffee. We sat at a small kitchen table while the shadows stretched long across the linoleum floor. We didn’t talk about the fight. We didn’t talk about Father.

We talked about the years in between. He told me about the jobs he held, the towns he lived in, and the loneliness that had been his only steady companion. He told me he carved the star into every piece he made, just in case.

“In case of what?” I asked.

“In case you were still looking,” he said.

I looked around his living room. It was filled with wooden toys, chairs, and tables. Every single one of them had that tiny, burned-in star. He had been leaving a trail for fifty-five years, hoping someone would eventually notice.