Gideon chose to visit the Lantern Mile location because she worked there.
He had intended to sit quietly, order a meal, and decide whether he had the courage to approach her.
The storm began earlier than forecast, and he left his wallet in the pocket of his other coat.
His phone remained charged, but he was too embarrassed to call his driver before going inside.
“So you really didn’t have eight dollars?” Emily asked.
“I didn’t have them with me.”
“You could have paid electronically.”
“I could have.”
“But you let me believe you couldn’t.”
Gideon looked at her.
“Yes.”
Emily let the silence stretch.
“That part wasn’t fair.”
“No, it wasn’t.”
“I lost my job because you wanted to sit there and think.”
“Your manager made that decision.”
“He did.”
She turned toward him.
“But you weren’t honest about who you were, and I was honest about what I could afford.”
Gideon lowered his eyes.
“I owe you an apology.”
“You do.”
“I’m sorry.”
Emily had heard too many apologies offered as the last step before someone asked her to forget a problem.
She waited for the request.
Gideon did not make one.
Instead he told her that Miriam’s last unfinished project was a list of children who had never received accurate records of their evacuations.
Miriam had marked Emily’s name because Nora’s refusal form proved that at least one mother had successfully resisted the transfer process.
The list did not claim Emily knew every answer.
It identified her as a person who might understand why the missing records mattered.
“Miriam wanted me to find you,” Gideon said.
“She wanted someone outside the company to have the documents.”
“Why me?”
“Because your mother trusted you with the truth she couldn’t safely tell you when you were little.”
Emily thought of Nora’s notebook and the handwritten note from Marian Pell.
The documents had survived because frightened people had kept them, sometimes imperfectly, when powerful institutions failed to ask questions.
“She could have sent the papers to a university,” Emily said.
“She sent some there.”
“Then why look for me?”
“Because she believed the families should help decide what happened to their own stories.”
Gideon paused.
“And because she knew your mother had never been thanked for standing up to Eastward.”
Emily looked at the red paper star in the photograph.
She did not know what Nora would have thought of Gideon’s explanation.
Her mother might have been angry that he took so long to act.
She might also have been relieved that the records had finally left his private files.
