Epilogue

Years later, Jacob and his wife were riding down the coast in a self-driving convertible.

The roof was down. The ocean flashed between the cliffs. The car handled the curves while they argued about where to stop for lunch.

Then Livonne spoke through the dashboard.

“Jacob, there’s a story in your family chronicle from this road. Would you like to see it?”

Jacob looked at his wife.

“Sure.”

A photograph appeared on the center display.

An old convertible sat near the water. Beside it stood a young Ron, one hand resting on the hood.

Jacob leaned toward the screen.

“No kidding.”

“Your great-grandfather drove this stretch of coast in that car,” Livonne said. “He recorded the story years later.”

Jacob had seen photographs of Ron. He knew the family stories. But Ron had died before Jacob was born.

“Let’s hear it.”

The recording began.

Ron’s voice filled the car.

“That convertible looked a lot better than it ran. About twenty miles up the coast, the temperature gauge went red. I pulled over and told her I had planned a picnic.”

A woman laughed somewhere beyond the recording.

“She told me I was full of it.”

Jacob laughed.

“We ate our sandwiches on the hood while the engine cooled. We didn’t have a reservation. We didn’t have much of a plan. We were young, the weather was good, and there was nowhere else we had to be.”

In the photograph, sunlight caught the windshield of the old car.

“So when the engine was ready, we kept going.”

The recording ended.

For a moment, there was only the wind and the sound of the road beneath them.

Jacob’s wife looked at the photograph.

“I like him.”

Jacob smiled.

“He died before I was born.”

“I know.”

He looked back at Ron beside the old convertible.

“But I know that laugh.”

At the next overlook, they pulled off the road.

Jacob stood beside their convertible with the ocean behind him. His wife took a picture.

A moment later, it appeared beside Ron’s photograph on the dashboard.

“Would you like to keep this one?” Livonne asked.

Jacob looked at the two cars, the two photographs, and the same road running behind them.

“Yeah,” he said. “Keep it.”