Dad, who checked the weather four times and filled the tank the night before, could not find his own phone in his own house.

The boys had teased him about it mercilessly.

He had grumbled and searched and finally surrendered and bought the new one, and the old one had passed out of all our minds entirely, swallowed by the house, forgotten so completely that when Abigail held it up six years later I had to reach back through a fog to even remember it had existed.

It had been here the whole time.