“You’re eavesdropping with your entire body.”
“I can’t hear a word.”
“That has not reduced the effort.”
Elliot sat across from Noah with a notebook open on the desk.
No recorder.
He asked a question, then waited.
Noah answered slowly. Sometimes he stopped and looked through the office window toward the harbor. Once, he looked at me.
I did not move toward him.
After a moment, he returned to Elliot.
A photographer arrived twenty minutes later. She wore her hair close to her head and carried a camera protected beneath a rain cover.
She waited outside the office until Noah emerged.
He chose the clean-loft doors as the background, positioning himself so the yard sign remained visible behind him.
He kept the pole in his hand.
He did not hide it.
The camera clicked.
The photographer asked him to turn slightly.
When he did, the right side of his head faced the pale morning light.
The scar became visible.
My jaw tightened.
Noah noticed.
He held my gaze for half a second.
Then he stayed exactly where he was.
The photographer took two more pictures and lowered the camera.
“That’s all.”
Elliot thanked Noah.
At the gate, I stopped him.
“What did you ask?”
He turned.
“About memory. Work. Rehabilitation. Home.”
“Money?”
