My father had played to packed venues. People had bought tickets to see him perform. He had once been a musician with a real audience and a future that might have taken him somewhere extraordinary.
Yet he’d never told me any of it.
“Why did you hide this?” I whispered.
I moved toward the instruments, recognizing equipment I’d spent years watching online reviews of but could never afford.
Then I saw a battered black guitar resting on a stand.
A small silver star sticker was still attached near the neck.
My guitar.
I’d bought it secondhand when I was sixteen and played it almost every day. After my arguments with Dad grew worse, I stopped recording and eventually lost track of the instrument. I’d assumed I’d misplaced it during one of my attempts to clean out my room.
But there it was, freshly restrung, with the crack near the bridge carefully repaired.
