Our Missing Hearts (31)

Wherever your mother is, whatever she’s doing, the librarian says, I’m sure of this: she’d be happy to know you grew up and stayed well. That you’re still here.

Then she blinks, once, twice. Returns to the present, to him.

But look, Bird, she says, if you want to get to New York—you need to find your own way. I can only pass on information. Not people.

Bird nods.

And I can’t let you go until you promise not to speak about any of this. Please, Bird. You of all people should understand. Pretend you don’t know anything—I mean anything—about this. People’s lives are at stake.

I would never, he says, the last word half garbled. I could never. And then, to prove to her he means it: My best friend, Sadie, was one of those kids.

A long, startled pause.

You knew Sadie? she says.

And then Bird remembers: of course. Sadie, after school every day, stopping by the library, even just for a few minutes.

We’d talk, the librarian says. Hard not to notice a little girl coming in like that, on her own.

A sudden hot flare of hope sears through Bird.

Is that where she went? he says, excited. You sent her home? Back to her mom and dad?

But the librarian shakes her head.

I couldn’t find out where her parents had gone, she says. Nobody could find out anything, except that they weren’t home anymore. And then all of a sudden, Sadie was gone, too.

A moment of silence, in which the librarian’s eyes on him are gentle and kind. It feels good, surprisingly good, to talk about Sadie with someone who knew her. To remember her.

Listen, the librarian says. I can’t take you to New York. I don’t know anyone who can. But I can do something.

She leads him back out of the office and through the shelves to a thick maroon binder. Inside: pages and pages of timetables, printed in pale blue columns.

Train schedules and routes, she says. This binder here, this one is buses. At the station, you can go to the counter, but there are also machines that sell tickets. In case you wanted to avoid— questions.

Thank you, Bird manages to say.

She smiles. I told you, she says, that’s my job. Information. Passing it on. Helping people find what they need.

She sets the opened binder atop the shelf and slides it across to him.

What you do with this information, she says, is your own business only.





Monday morning, his father is already waiting, work satchel in hand, when Bird emerges from the bedroom. He has hidden his schoolbooks under the blanket on his bed; in their place, the bag on his back holds a change of clothes, a toothbrush, and all the money he has. All the dropped bills he’s found and saved over the years, all the lunch money kept from all the days when, rather than eat in the cafeteria, he would sit alone with his thoughts outside. Just enough, according to the timetables in the library, for a one-way ticket to Manhattan. The bus he’s selected departs at ten o’clock. Plenty of time.

Though the elevator has been repaired at last, it groans and fumbles as it shudders its slow way downward. Between the mirrored walls, an infinite chain of Bird and his father accordions into the distance.

Bird waits until the numbers tick down from six to five before he speaks.

I forgot my lunch, he announces.

Noah, his father says, how many times do I have to tell you.

The elevator grinds to a halt and opens onto the dorm lobby. Sunlight pours through the plate-glass windows, so bright he feels like an insect on a light table. Surely his father will look at his face and know that he’s lying. But his father just sighs and checks his watch.

Staff meeting at nine today, he says. I can’t wait for you. Run back up and get it and hurry to school. Don’t dawdle, okay?

Bird nods and hits the elevator button again, and his father turns to go. At the sight of his back—so familiar, in his old brown coat—Bird’s throat tightens.

Dad, he calls, and his father turns around, gives a soft oof as Bird throws his arms around him.

What’s this? his father says. I thought you were too old for hugs.

But he’s teasing, and he squeezes Bird tight, and Bird snuggles into the comfortable dusty wool of his father’s overcoat. He suddenly wants to tell him everything. To say, come with me. We’ll find her together. But he knows his father will never let him go, let alone come with him. If he wants to go, he will have to go alone.

Bye, Dad, he says, and his father gives him a wave and is gone.

Upstairs, Bird lets himself back into the apartment and rushes to the window. He ducks behind the curtains and peeks down at the small grassy square of courtyard below. There he is: the dark speck of his father, nearly at the gate.

He’s watched his father cross this courtyard before, on snow days when Bird’s school closed but his father’s work did not. He used to stand by the window, waiting until his father emerged far below, watch him head down the path and out of sight. In the winter, the small dots of footprints that appeared in his father’s wake were like magic. Up close, Bird knew, they were jagged holes crushed into the ice. But from where he stood—ten stories up, pinned against and behind glass—they were dainty and precise. Beautiful. Purposeful. Thin stitching on a snow-white quilt; a trail of stones placed to mark the path home, or to show someone the way. How comforting, to know that he could go downstairs, follow the marks his father’s feet have made, all the way to wherever he’s gone.