“I know.”
“You went to coffee already knowing who I was.”
“Yes.”
“And I knew nothing.”
Claire shut her eyes for a second.
“Yes. I meant to tell you that day.”
I picked up the photograph again and tapped the newer handwriting.
“You wrote this before you saw me again.”
I looked at the date once more.
“Were you ever going to tell me? Where was this taken?”
“The old Pine Street library.”
I frowned.
“Didn’t they gut that place years ago?”
“The original children’s room is still there,” she said. “They rebuilt around it.”
Then small pieces started coming back to me.
Low bookshelves.
Beanbags.
A paper sun hanging crooked from a ceiling tile.
I could almost smell the dusty carpet.
Then another detail surfaced.
Yellow.
I stared harder at the photograph.
