Chapter 5 - THE MOON HAD A NAME
Cameron sat in the car with the note against his knee.
“What does it mean?” Marcus asked.
“Nothing anyone could find in a newspaper.”
Lily had been afraid of the dark.
Cameron used to carry her to the window and point at the moon.
He had told her it was a porch light.
“Whose porch?” she always asked.
“Your grandmother’s.”
She had named it Grandma’s Porch Light.
The night before Caroline took her to Boston, Lily had demanded that Cameron promise to keep it turned on.
He had forgotten that conversation for ten years.
Now he could hear every word.
Marcus handed him a pen.
Cameron wrote beneath her question.
Grandma’s Porch Light.
You asked me to leave it on.
The maintenance worker, Luis, returned during his lunch break.
Marcus took his full name and number.
“You don’t need to take risks,” he told him.
Luis looked toward the building.
“She’s been asking about her family for months.
They keep telling her to stop.”
He tucked the note into his pocket.
An hour later, Ruth called.
“A judge will hear the emergency application this afternoon.
We have enough to request an independent welfare check and prevent a transfer while identity is investigated.”
“Enough to get her out?”
“Enough to put someone independent in the room.
We build from there.”
Cameron walked to the far end of the parking lot.
He couldn’t sit still.
His phone rang.
Graham.
“You’re making a terrible mistake.”
“Then explain it.”
“Eva has complicated medical needs.”
“You know her name.”
“Cameron—”
“You know where she lives.
You know her medical needs.
And you told me the photograph was fake.”
Graham’s voice went flat.
“Think before you tear apart the only life she knows.”
Cameron looked at the building.
“You let me bury an empty coffin?”
“It wasn’t empty.”
The words hung between them.
Cameron couldn’t speak.
Graham ended the call.
Minutes later, Luis returned.
He carried a fresh note.
I remember the light.
May you like
But they told me you didn’t want me.
Did you?
