On the walls were more photos, concert posters, and newspaper clippings. One clipping described a local rock band packing the Riverside Theater for a third consecutive weekend. His father had not merely played music in private. People had once paid to hear him perform.

Then the son saw something that stopped him: his own battered black guitar, the one he had bought secondhand at sixteen. It had disappeared years earlier, and he assumed it had been thrown away by mistake. Now it sat on a stand with fresh strings. Even the crack near the bridge had been repaired.

On a nearby table was a flash drive with two handwritten words on tape. He plugged it into a computer and opened the only video file.

The footage began with his father as a young man rehearsing in a garage with his band. He was loud, funny, and full of life, teasing Frank about his drumming and laughing through mistakes onstage and backstage. It was a version of his father the son had never known.

Then the video changed.

His father appeared in the same studio, visibly ill from cancer. He looked into the camera and apologized. He admitted he had not been good at talking about feelings. After his wife died, he said, he became scared. He thought keeping a roof overhead, working hard, and teaching his son to be responsible would be enough.

But somewhere along the way, he said, he forgot how to be a father.

He explained that watching old recordings had reminded him how much music once meant to him, and how his son used to look when he played. He realized he had spent years trying to protect his son from the same dream that had once made his own life feel worth living.