"How long have you been here?"
Ethan stared at the fountain.
"Since lunch."
Michael checked his watch.
It was nearly three.
Three hours.
"Does your mother know you're waiting here?"
"She told me to."
"Did she say why?"
Ethan nodded.
"She had to go somewhere."
"Where?"
He didn't answer.
Michael tried again.
"Is she at work?"
"No."
"At home?"
"No."
"At a hospital?"
Ethan's eyes lifted.
Michael immediately noticed.
"Why did you ask that?" Ethan whispered.
Michael's stomach tightened.
"I don't know. I guessed."
Ethan looked away.
"She's sick."
Michael became very still.
"What kind of sick?"
"She doesn't like talking about it."
"Does she have someone with her?"
Ethan shook his head.
"She said she'd be back."
He said it with such certainty that Michael realized something.
Ethan wasn't simply waiting.
He was holding onto a promise.
And children who had been disappointed often became experts at defending promises.
Lily leaned closer.
"Do you have a dad?"
Ethan's fingers stopped moving.
Michael looked at Lily.
"Lily."
"What?"
"That's personal."
Ethan looked down.
"I don't know."
Michael frowned.
"What do you mean?"
"My mom never talked about him."
"Never?"
"She had a picture."
Michael's heart gave a strange, unexpected beat.
"A picture of him?"
Ethan nodded.
"He told me not to lose it."
"Who did?"
"My mom."
He reached into the paper bag.
His fingers disappeared beneath a folded sweater.
Then he pulled out a small envelope.
The envelope was old.
The corners had been softened by years of handling.
Ethan looked at Michael.
"She told me something else."
"What?"
"If I ever met a man who looked like the person in the picture, I was supposed to ask him one question."
Michael felt an inexplicable chill.
"What question?"
Ethan opened the envelope.
He pulled out a photograph.
Michael looked down.
And stopped breathing.
The photograph showed a young woman standing near a lake.
She was laughing.
Her dark hair blew across her face.
Michael knew her.
Not because he had seen the photograph before.
Because he had spent years trying not to remember her.
"Claire," he whispered.
Ethan stared at him.
"You know her?"
Michael took the photograph with trembling fingers.
There she was.
Claire.
Eleven years earlier, Michael had spent one summer with her.
Four months.
Four months that had been intense, reckless, beautiful, and unfinished.
Then life had separated them.
Claire had disappeared from his world.
Michael had assumed she had moved on.
He had never known she was pregnant.
He had never known there was a child.
He looked at Ethan again.
The boy had Claire's mouth.
But his eyes—
Michael felt the room inside his mind rearrange itself.
Ethan swallowed.
"My mom said to ask you."
Michael couldn't speak.
Ethan's voice became almost inaudible.
"Are you my dad?"
For several seconds, the fountain was the only thing Michael could hear.
Water.
Wind.
Traffic.
People laughing somewhere behind them.
Everything continued.
Everything except Michael's understanding of his own life.
He looked at the boy.
Then at Lily.
Then at the photograph.
"I don't know," Michael finally said.
Ethan's face fell.
Michael immediately reached for his shoulder.
"But I'm going to find out."
Ethan looked at him.
"And until we know," Michael continued, "you're not waiting here alone."
He stood and held out his hand.
Ethan stared at it.
Then he took it.
Lily grabbed Ethan's other hand.
"Where are we going?"
Michael looked toward the hospital district.
"To find your mother."
And as the three of them walked away from the fountain, Michael realized that his carefully organized life had just become irrelevant.
Because somewhere ahead was a woman he had loved eleven years ago.
A child he had never known.
And a truth that had apparently been waiting for him all along.
St. Catherine's Hospital was four blocks from the park.
Michael walked quickly, but he didn't run.
He didn't want Ethan to see panic.
Children noticed panic.
Especially children who had learned to monitor adults.
Lily stayed beside Ethan.
She kept asking him small questions.
What was his favorite food?
Did he like dinosaurs?
Could he ride a bike?
Did he like school?
Ethan answered some.
Ignored others.
But gradually, his shoulders relaxed.
Michael watched them from several steps ahead.
Lily had always been fearless around people.
Ethan was the opposite.
Yet somehow they fit together.
At the hospital entrance, Michael stopped.
"Ethan, what's your mother's full name?"
"Claire Bennett."
Michael's chest tightened.
Bennett.
Not Rourke.
Of course.
She had never married him.
Why would she?
Michael approached the reception desk.
"Excuse me. I'm looking for Claire Bennett. She may have been admitted today."
The receptionist typed something.
"I'm sorry. We can't release patient information without authorization."
Michael nodded.
"I'm a family friend."
That was not entirely true.
But neither was it entirely false.
The receptionist looked at him.
"Do you know what department?"