He's still smiling.
It's the full version. The one I've been collecting in pieces for weeks, the almost-smile, the ghost of one, the careful half-second of something real before the walls came back up. This one has nowhere left to go because the walls came down on a River North sidewalk and apparently they're staying down.
It changes his face completely.
Not softer exactly. More complete. Like a room that's been missing a piece of furniture that you didn't notice was missing until it arrived and you thought, oh, that's what this space was for.
I look at Petra's message on the phone, and then at him.
"She's watching us," I say.
"I know," he says.
"From the car."
"I can see the car," he says. "I could see it the whole time."
"And you still came one minute early."
"Forty-six minutes
