Three years passed.
Gabriel and I led a private research initiative. Our days were filled with physics and the warmth of a home built on trust.
North City General Hospital called on the first day of heavy snow.
Arthur's organs were failing. Years of stress and relentless work had caught up with him. He had hours, perhaps a day. The hospital had found my name on an old next-of-kin form.
Gabriel watched me set down the phone.
"You don't have to go."
"I know."
I reached for my coat.
I went for the ten-year-old boy with sawdust in his hair, holding up a crooked wooden rocket. That memory deserved a goodbye, even if the man in the hospital bed did not know how to ask for one.
Machines crowded Arthur's room. Their steady beeps were the loudest sound in it.
Julian sat in the corner, sto
