“You’re Claire.”
“Yes.”
He smiled, and I saw Carl in him.
Not his face exactly.
His warmth.
His quiet sadness.
“I used to sing to you,” he said.
A melody entered my memory.
Three notes, repeated softly.
The song I had hummed whenever I was frightened as a child.
“You sang about the moon,” I whispered.
Lucas began to cry.
“So you remembered.”
I approached the bed.
For a moment, I did not know whether to embrace him or demand answers. He was my father, yet also a stranger who had been hidden less than a hundred miles away while I grew up alone.
“What did Lenora do to you?”
Lucas looked at Evelyn.
“She told me both of you were d/e/@/d.”
Evelyn shook her head.
“She told me Claire was gone.”
“She showed me a newspaper report. There were photographs from the burned boat. She said Carl had identified your belongings.”
