The 20-year age difference made me hesitate, but not for very long.
Our first coffee lasted nearly four hours.
She remembered that I hated cinnamon in coffee.
I remembered that she bought terrible refrigerator magnets whenever she traveled.
By our third date, she knew my boss’s name, my favorite pizza place, and how I’d gotten the scar on my wrist.
With Claire, I’d never felt like I had to wonder what she meant.
Apparently, what I’d been wrong about was where she had come from.
“So you matched with me because of Nora.”
Claire didn’t try to avoid the question.
“At first, yes.”
I put the photograph down on the coffee table.
“Wow.”
“Ethan, I wasn’t trying to trick you into a relationship.”
“You literally recognized me from childhood and didn’t tell me.”
“I know.”
“You went to coffee already knowing who I was.”
“Yes.”
“And I knew nothing.”
Claire shut her eyes for a second.
“Yes. I meant to tell you that day.”
I picked up the photograph again and tapped the newer handwriting.
“You wrote this before you saw me again.”
I looked at the date once more.
“Were you ever going to tell me? Where was this taken?”
“The old Pine Street library.”
I frowned.
“Didn’t they gut that place years ago?”
“The original children’s room is still there,” she said. “They rebuilt around it.”
Then small pieces started coming back to me.
Low bookshelves.
Beanbags.
A paper sun hanging crooked from a ceiling tile.
I could almost smell the dusty carpet.
Then another detail surfaced.
Yellow.
I stared harder at the photograph.
“Her glasses were yellow.”
Claire blinked.
“What?”
“Nora’s glasses. They were yellow.”
Claire looked down at the picture.
“They were purple.”
“No,” I said. “They were yellow.”
She stared at me for a moment.
Then she laughed.
“She painted them.”
“What?”
“With yellow nail polish. My mother almost lost her mind.”
The memory arrived so suddenly that I had to sit down.
A girl sitting cross-legged in thick yellow glasses, holding a paperback much too close to her face.
I still couldn’t remember what book she was reading.
But I remembered being annoyed with her.
“You want to go there?” Claire asked.
I looked up at her.
She immediately realized what she’d done.
“Sorry. Wrong question.”
A moment passed.
Then she tried again.
“If you want to know where the picture came from, I’ll tell you here. Or I can show you. Or I can leave.”
It was the first thing she’d said all evening that didn’t sound as though she’d already decided what was best for me.
I grabbed my jacket.
“Take me to the library.”
Claire changed out of the green dress without saying another word.
Twenty minutes later, we were standing beneath the fluorescent lights inside the Pine Street branch.
The adult section looked completely unfamiliar to me.
The children’s room didn’t.
It was smaller than I remembered.
Far smaller.
I moved slowly past the shelves until I reached the back corner.
“There used to be a blue rug.”
Claire pointed. “Right there.”
Now the rug was gray.
I lowered myself into one of the small chairs at a little table.
My knees barely fit underneath.
Claire remained near the doorway.
I looked around the room.
Then I noticed a display filled with adventure books.
Another piece of memory returned.
Nora slamming a book shut.
Me accusing her of skipping three pages.
Her telling me I was just slow.
I laughed before I meant to.
Claire didn’t ask what was funny.
