Page 85 of Babies for my Ex’s Bodyguard

Haven House.

Another line sits beneath it, and I work across the page until the letters become clear enough to read.

Family Transition Fund.

I examine the phrase before carrying the photograph and paper back to the dining table. Haven House is already identified in the picture, which means the second line refers to a program, account, or project connected to the shelter.

I open my laptop and search the full name, then add Haven House and Albany when the first results lead nowhere. The shelter’s current programs appear, along with old fundraising events and public filings, but none of them mention a Family Transition Fund.

Adding Celeste’s name produces the same dead end, and archived pages offer nothing that connects her to it.

The fund may have disappeared years ago, although Celeste’s preference for private generosity offers another explanation. She helped people because they needed it, and public acknowledgment usually made her uncomfortable enough to change the subject or leave the room.

If she created or supported this fund, she may have made certain nobody outside Haven House knew it existed.

I close the laptop and return the photograph to its sleeve, although I keep the revealed name beside it.

Searching from my apartment has taken me as far as it can. Haven House has the rest of the answers.

I follow the directions onto a residential street lined with mature maples until Haven House comes into view at the end of the block, looking almost exactly as it does in the photograph I have.

The brickwork has been repaired along one corner, the trees have grown taller, and the lantern beside the entrance has been replaced, but the front steps haven’t changed.

I pull into the visitor parking lot, grab the photograph from the passenger seat, and head inside.

The lobby feels lived in. Children’s artwork fills one wall beside framed photographs from community events, shelves of donated books line another, and a play area occupies the corner where two young boys are building a tower from wooden blocks under the half-attentive supervision of a volunteer at the reception desk.

She smiles as I approach. “Good afternoon. Can I help you?”

“I hope so.” I slide the photograph across the counter. “I’m trying to learn more about the woman in the middle.”

She picks it up, and the smile softens the instant she sees Celeste. “I haven’t seen this picture in years.”

“You remember her?”

“I remember every visit.” Her thumb hovers over the edge of the photograph without touching it. “Celeste always found an excuse to stand anywhere else whenever somebody brought out a camera.”

I can’t help smiling. “That sounds like her.”