第2章 第9節 父の名
Her Father's Name
The tape ran on, and Marion's voice grew colder and clearer.
"Men lit that fire for money," she said, "and let Peer burn."
She began to name them, one by one, without .
Each name was a stone dropped into the still, dark water.
Nora listened to a list of men long buried by silence.
These were people trusted by the town, hidden behind .
"I have kept their names all these years," Marion said.
Then came a name that stopped Nora's heart completely.
It was a name spoken often in her childhood home.
It was her father's name, Thomas Hale, said aloud.
Nora's hands, gripping the table, had gone entirely white.
"No," she whispered. "He has never been part of this."
The voice recorded on that tape did not stop for her.
"Thomas was there the night the cannery was set alight."
Everything Nora had believed about her father seemed to crack.
The man who had raised her stood accused by the dead.
She thought of his : whatever arrives, burn it.
Now she understood the fear that had shaped his whole life.
But her mother's voice softened, changed, and slowed down.
"Listen to me carefully, Nora," Marion said. "This matters most."
"Thomas was there, but Thomas tried to stop it."
A breath of broke painfully from Nora's chest.
"He refused to strike the ," her mother went on.
"For that, he has been punished every day since."
Nora sat with the two truths she had just been given.
Her father was of knowing, and of trying to save them.