“Yes.”
“And Mommy’s gone.”
I went still.
“Your mom?”
“Our real mom,” he said. “She went away when we were babies. Claire said she didn’t want us either.”
Lily opened her eyes.
“She said we made Mommy sad,” Lily murmured.
Owen looked at her sharply, like he had not meant to wake her.
I kept my voice steady. “Do you remember your mom?”
They both shook their heads.
“Do you know her name?”
Lily whispered, “Anna.”
Anna Bennett.
Another piece of a life I did not know.
Maya returned with news just before nine.
Emergency foster placement was available for the night with a certified family near Park Ridge. It was, by all accounts, a good home. Warm. Experienced. Safe.
Lily listened without expression.
Owen looked at the floor.
“Will we go to school tomorrow?” Lily asked.
“Not tomorrow,” Maya said. “Tomorrow we’ll figure out next steps.”
“Will Claire come get us?”
Maya paused. “Not tomorrow.”
“When?”
“I don’t know.”
Lily nodded like she had expected that answer.
I saw then what grief had done to them. It had taught them to accept uncertainty as weather. Something that happened whether they wanted it or not.
Maya allowed me to say goodbye.
I crouched in front of them again, the same way I had at the bench.
“You’re going with Ms. Hernandez now,” I said. “She’s going to make sure you have a safe place to sleep.”
Owen asked, “Are you leaving?”
The word sliced cleanly through me.
“For tonight,” I said. “But I’ll check with Ms. Hernandez tomorrow.”
“You promise?”
I had made billion-dollar commitments with less fear than I felt at that question.
Promises to children should not be used as bandages over adult uncertainty.
So I chose carefully.
“I promise I will try to help in the ways I’m allowed.”
Owen did not like that answer.
But Lily studied me, serious and quiet.
“That means you won’t lie,” she said.
“No,” I said. “I won’t lie.”
She stepped forward and hugged me.
It was sudden, brief, and so careful that it broke my heart. Her arms touched my shoulders as if she expected to be told she had done it wrong.
I froze for half a second.
Then I wrapped one arm around her gently.
Owen watched.
Then he stepped in too, Captain pressed between us.
For one minute, the noise of O’Hare disappeared.
There was only the weight of two children who had been left behind and the terrible privilege of being someone they had decided, for reasons I did not deserve, might come back.
When Maya led them away, Owen turned three times.
Lily turned once.
I stood there until they disappeared through the sliding doors.
Marco did not speak.
Good.
If he had, I might have broken something.
That night, I did not board my flight.
I returned to my penthouse overlooking the city and found it exactly as I had left it—silent, spotless, expensive, empty.
The lights came on automatically as I entered.
Floor-to-ceiling windows reflected a man in a dark suit with tired eyes and a jaw clenched too tightly. Beyond the glass, Chicago glittered under a low ceiling of clouds. Cars moved along Lake Shore Drive like streams of red and white light.
I poured a glass of water and left it untouched.
At midnight, Elise arrived carrying a folder.
She had a key. She used it only when she had decided my permission was unnecessary.
“You look awful,” she said.
“You always know what to say.”
“It’s a gift.”
She set the folder on the kitchen island. “Preliminary information. Public records only, plus what I could get through appropriate channels.”
