She placed a yellowed notebook on the table.
The pages contained dates, initials, and reminders to follow up with people who requested mail pickup.
Helena was careful to say that the notes were her own, not official housing records.
She had never received permission to retain residents’ private case files, and she had not done so.
One entry described a man using the initial R who asked whether a former East Harbor resident could receive mail without giving a residential address.
Helena had explained the library could not serve as a permanent mailing address but had directed him to other services.
A later note recorded that the man returned with a woman wearing a red wool cap.
They said they had found safe accommodation but did not want anyone from Northbridge to know the location.
Selma asked whether the woman’s name might be Edith Crane, one of the two unresolved records.
Helena could not confirm it.
She remembered the woman’s voice but not her full name.
Caleb felt disappointed.
Helena noticed and closed the notebook.
“I won’t turn a memory into a certainty because you need a better ending,” she told him.
The sentence embarrassed him, but he knew she was right.
Selma followed a different lead from the notebook.
One initials entry matched a church volunteer who had helped people obtain identification cards.
The volunteer, now retired, remembered taking two former East Harbor residents to a county office.
He had kept a calendar noting the trip and could identify the date.
A request for archived appointment records might help establish their identities if the records still existed.
Caleb left the library with no revelation and several practical tasks.
As they walked outside, Helena called after him.
“Tell your mother Jonah used to leave extra gloves for people who forgot theirs,” she said.
Caleb smiled.
“She still has a bag of his gloves.”
“Then he was exactly the kind of person I remember,” Helena answered.
Caleb carried that small confirmation home like something valuable.
It had nothing to do with money or evidence.
It reminded him that his father’s life was larger than the last unsolved problem he had tried to fix.
Chapter 25: A Different Kind of Dinner
Several weeks after the steakhouse confrontation, Arthur invited Caleb, Denise, and Nia to a meal at a community center.
The invitation was written on an ordinary postcard.
Arthur insisted that nobody wear formal clothes.
Ada Cho cooked lentil soup, roasted chicken, and bread that filled the hallway with a warm smell.
