The morning of my fathers funeral was a hazy blur of cold coffee and digital ghosts. I stood in the quiet of my kitchen scrolling through old photos on my phone desperate to find one more detail I hadnt memorized a specific wink a crooked grin or the way the sunlight hit the polished chrome of his 1967 Shelby Mustang.
That car was more than a machine it was a mechanical diary of his life. He had spent thirty years restoring it bolt by bolt. It was his pride his stubbornness and his heart all wrapped in vintage steel. As I looked at a photo of him laughing with his arm slung around me I realized my stepmother Karen was nowhere to be found in the frames. She had always been a peripheral figure in our lives a woman who occupied the space next to him but never truly integrated into the family. When my phone lit up with her name on the screen I felt a cold knot tighten in my stomach.