“Your mother said—”
“My mother was scared.”
I fell silent.
Marco looked at me.
“We don’t know what happened, Luke.”
He was repeating my own lesson back to me.
Facts.
Not assumptions.
I nodded.
“You’re right.”
A quiet passed.
Then Marco asked, “Do you think Daniel is telling the truth?”
“Some of it.”
“Which part?”
“I don’t know.”
“You are saying that a lot tonight.”
“Elena already mentioned it.”
He smiled.
Then his phone vibrated.
The smile vanished.
“What?”
He read the screen.
“Gabriel.”
I stood.
The message was an address.
Nothing else.
“Where?”
Marco entered it into the map.
His eyebrows drew together.
“Brooklyn.”
“What is there?”
He searched.
Then slowly turned his screen toward me.
Mercer Children’s Library.
I stared.
My mother had funded it after my father died.
A small public reading center in Brooklyn.
I had attended the opening.
Cut the ribbon.
Smiled for photographs.
Never returned.
“Why there?” Marco asked.
“I don’t know.”
He looked at me.
“Should we go?”
My first instinct was yes.
Immediately.
Move.
Solve.
Control.
Then I looked at Elena.
She was sleeping.
Her hand rested over our child.
“I promised I wouldn’t disappear.”
Marco nodded.
“I’ll go.”
“No.”
“Luke.”
“No more people walking into this alone.”
“So what do you suggest?”
I thought.
Then I walked to Elena’s bed.
I touched her shoulder gently.
Her eyes opened.
“What happened?”
“Marco received a message.”
“From Gabriel?”
“Probably.”
“Where?”
I told her.
She blinked several times.
“Why are you telling me?”
The question hurt.
Because three months earlier, I would not have.
“I need to decide whether to go.”
“Then go.”
“I promised—”
“You promised not to disappear.”
She pushed herself up.
“That means you tell me where you’re going. You call. You come back.”
I watched her.
Trust was not blind.
It was not silence.
It was information.
Choice.
“Do you want me to stay?” I asked.
Elena considered the question.
Then shook her head.
“I want answers.”
“So do I.”
“Then go find some.”
I bent forward.
For a second, instinct almost carried me toward her lips.
I stopped.
Elena noticed.
Her eyes softened.
She lifted my hand.
Then pressed a kiss against my knuckles.
“Come back,” she said.
“I will.”
Marco and I left just before dawn.
The city was gray.
Wet.
Half awake.
The Mercer Children’s Library sat between a church and a laundromat.
A small brick building with blue doors.
My mother’s name appeared on a bronze plaque.
IN MEMORY OF SAMUEL MERCER.
I stared at it.
“What?” Marco asked.
“Nothing.”
But it wasn’t nothing.
My father hated public memorials.
He once called naming buildings after dead men an expensive form of guilt.
“Do you have a key?” Marco asked.
“No.”
The blue door opened.
A woman in her seventies stepped outside.
She wore a purple sweater and thick glasses.
“Mr. Mercer?”
“Yes.”
“I’ve been waiting.”
Marco stepped closer.
“Who are you?”
“Ruth Vale.”
The surname stopped us both.
She smiled sadly.
“Peter was my son.”
We followed her inside.
The library smelled of paper, old wood, and lemon polish.
Children’s drawings covered one wall.
Stars.
Dinosaurs.
A crooked purple dog.
Ruth led us downstairs.
“My son worked with Elena,” she said.
“We know.”
“No. You know he supervised her.”
I looked at her.
