I thought of Harlan pacing fourteen steps across a hospital waiting room.
“What does he hide?”
Mr. Alvarez smiled.
“That is not my story to tell.”
Belle came to the Meridian on Saturday.
Her doctors had cleared her to return to normal activity, though Mara watched her with the focus of an air-traffic controller.
Belle wore both shoes.
I pointed this out.
She looked offended.
“I usually wear two.”
“I’ve only known you a week. I don’t have enough data.”
She considered that.
“Fair.”
Harlan stood nearby.
He had brought her to watch the children’s choir rehearse for the reopening.
When the music started, Belle sat beside me.
“Dad says you get to decide something important.”
“Harlan talks to you about theater governance?”
“What’s governance?”
“That answers my question.”
She swung her feet.
“He said your mom helped his mom.”
“Apparently.”
“My grandma Eleanor is in pictures everywhere.”
