Catherine by that point had made two phone calls. The first was to Vivian, a brief pleasant exchange in which she mentioned the photograph and expressed in the tone of someone performing concern that she hoped it would not become a distraction ahead of the restructuring review. The second call was to a journalist she had worked with before which she placed from a personal number. That night Vivian asked Rachel to find the address of the bakery. Rachel asked why.
Vivian gave her the answer she had prepared. She wanted to try the baked goods. Rachel wrote down the address and said nothing. Because knowing when not to ask follow-up questions was part of why she had kept this job for 6 years. She arrived on Wednesday morning at 7:23.
No driver, no Rachel, no calendar alert that would record this visit as scheduled commitment. She wore the gray cashmere she wore when she had early meetings, which was close enough to normal that it did not feel like she had dressed for something she was unwilling to name. The bakery's door stuck slightly on the left side and she had to lift the handle before it opened. Inside the light was warm and the smell was the specific combination of butter and heat that settles into the walls of places where this is done every single day and not just on occasion. On the wall behind the counter, a framed photograph caught her eye for a half second.
An older black woman standing in front of a small house. Her hands dusted with flour smiling at whoever held the camera. Elijah's grandmother, though Vivian had no way of knowing yet. Elijah was behind the counter. He looked up and registered her presence with the equanimity of someone who had spent years greeting people who came through that door in all conditions and moods and states of mind.
He did not look surprised. He looked if anything like he had been expecting something though he could not have said what. Croissant or garlic bread? He said. It was the most ordinary sentence she had heard all week.
Zoe appeared before Vivian could answer. She came from the corner table near the window where she had been eating breakfast wearing her school uniform with the top button undone. Her two neat twists held at the ends with small purple beads that made a soft clicking sound when she walked. And she stopped in front of Vivian and looked up at her with the frank thorough appraisal that only young children and very honest adults are capable of. Then she said, "Are you the person from my drawing?"
The bakery had two other customers at the far table. They did not look up. Elijah went very still behind the counter. Vivian looked down at the small girl with the direct brown eyes and the question that had no tactical layer whatsoever. Just a child asking a thing she genuinely wanted to know.